


The Air Conditioning Universe

by cobbvanth



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Bathroom Sex, Choking, Come Eating, Complete, Dirty Talk, F/M, Hair-pulling, Hand Jobs, Masturbation, Multiple Orgasms, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Smut, Temperature Play, Unprotected Sex, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:41:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 52,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28164906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobbvanth/pseuds/cobbvanth
Summary: a collection of stories that vaguely orbit around the reader's broken air conditioner
Relationships: Javier Peña & Reader, Javier Peña/Original Female Character(s), Javier Peña/Reader, Javier Peña/You
Comments: 9
Kudos: 109





	1. The Bar

**Author's Note:**

> this is my second time posting this lmao but having just finished the series and the one year anniversary of the first chapter coming up, I thought I'd put it back on here. thanks to everyone who read and enjoyed it the first time around and on my tumblr as well (@cobbvader) it means a lot <3

There are several things you notice when you walk in. 

The first is the music. It’s source is unknown but it floats through the club in a quiet melody; just loud enough for you to catch, an undercurrent to the sounds of glasses clinking, alcohol being poured, and the murmur of people’s voices; low in each other’s ears, speaking to a lover; or uproarious, yelling at the television or laughing at a joke. It’s nondescript, emphasized by a guitar, pleasant notes filtering out of speakers. 

The second is that it’s crowded and warm enough that you could slip past people unnoticed, busy even for a Friday night. The fans spinning lazily on the ceiling do very little to cool down anything, yet the air isn’t stagnant like you had expected. Comfortable for as long as you’ll be here, a breeze filtering in through the open door. 

The third you’re most unsure about only because you’re afraid to look and draw more attention to yourself and/or have your suspicions be confirmed, leading to an unwanted conversation with a person you’re not interested in, or worse having them buy you a drink, making them feel obligated to your time. 

You slip onto a bar stool easily, keeping yourself focused on the polished wood; stained slightly from years of drinks being spilled; rings created from beer bottles left to sit without a coaster and warm in the heated atmosphere leaving their permanent marks. Discarded peanut shells and pretzels also litter its surface and you brush them away before sliding a fresh bowl towards you, doing what you can to ignore the way your spine tingles with a spider-shock thrill of self-awareness. 

Someone near you is staring. 

The hairs on the back of your neck stand up and the room altogether feels far too compact; like the walls are slowly sliding closer and closer to one another, the rumblings of them shifting hidden by the noise of everything else and of the blood suddenly rushing in your ears. You aren’t afraid but it isn’t a pleasant feeling either and it does not pass as you expected it to. The feeling of being watched lingers, even as you lift your hand to catch the attention of the bartender who walks over and takes your order, then is across the bar again just as swiftly as he had approached you. 

It intensifies, surmounts until it feels like its entire presence is filling up the building, crawling into every space that isn’t already occupied. You conscientiously ignore it, if only now because the feeling is so oppressive you fear that the owner will be just as invading, taking your acknowledgment as synonymous with acceptance and make their move. 

Then it’s gone just as the daiquiri you ordered is placed in front of you. Washed away as if it had never been pressed against your back, suffocating and all consuming. You thank the server with a small smile and immediately take a sip of the fruity drink, relieved yet somehow put less at ease. 

You still don’t look even though now you want to, just to know who this person is that has the ability to make your entire body feel hot. You know how this is going to work and you’re not interested in that kind of game tonight. This club isn’t notorious for attracting the best in Colombia anyway (you’ll ignore what that says about you). Even if this person does happen to be interesting, it isn’t worth the risk.

The strawberry pink liquid inside your cup swirls as you spin your straw around inside of it. The little plastic umbrella, a lighter shade of pink with white stripes, follows behind it as if the two were connected by a magnet. Behind you other patrons continue to laugh and talk amongst themselves, and when a particularly zealous soccer fan shouts at the t.v. you can do little to control the way you jump, the beginnings of regret for making the decision to stay (or come here at all, really) starting to trickle throughout your chest. 

Fifteen minutes pass in relative peace. The cacophony of noise continues behind and around you like nothing has happened and the feeling doesn’t come back, but you’re still hyper-aware of the potential that it might, even as strangers start coming and going; filling the bar with a new wave of faces. By now your glass is about empty. You weren’t really paying attention to how the alcohol drained at least a few inches with each of your sips until you went to grab another pretzel and found that your hand feels like it’s been encased in plaster, slow moving and a little blurry.

Still, you consider the benefits of ordering another. One drink in and your cheeks are already rosy - but you’re more or less aware of your surroundings. Another might push you off that plateau, help you loosen up. You order a shot of tequila this time, which is, fuck - well it’s a bad idea - because it burns like hell going down and sets a low fire in your belly and you cough a little bit - but it gets the job done; your shoulders sagging, bones feeling like jelly. However, when you go to pay for these things (the tequila still sharp on your tongue) you find that someone else already has - and the happy warmth that has bloomed throughout your body and into your limbs hardens slightly. 

“Oh,” you register yourself saying, blinking dumbly. “Do you know who?” 

Even as you ask the question you know that you’re not really sure if you want the answer. The whole night you’ve been avoiding this person, kept your head low as you picked at peanuts and sipped your drink. But once the bartender raises his hand and points you’ll have to look - to see - because if anything, he’s expecting you to - and if you don’t, well: what then? You’ll trust this person not to have any ulterior motives? To be normal when they sidle up next to you and introduce themselves? 

The idea of leaving hasn’t even crossed your mind. 

You wonder in the muted back-corners of your mind if desire might be a part of any of this. Who comes to a bar just to drink? Maybe you had been too quick to judge this guy - whoever he might be - yet you can’t be sure until you look. 

So you finally do, head turning in the direction of this mysteriously generous unknown person and lock eyes with the most breathtaking man you’ve seen in your life. Expressive brown eyes are set beneath a strong brow bone and dark lashes. His profile is strong, his hair (you assume it was slicked back at some point), falling a little across his forehead from where he’s had his head in his hands. He makes you think of filthy things like fucking in the bathroom, or outside in the allyway next to the building. Just making truly awful, terrible, instinctive decisions. 

The one thing most striking about him, however, is how he smiles. A little crooked, genuine despite the implications of meeting here, of him paying your tab. And how it’s nearly juxtaposed against how tired he looks, his shirt a little wrinkled, the label on his beer bottle being ildy chipped away at by his thumbnail. It makes your heart hiccup - both in slight pity and excitement - stumbling and stuttering - skipping a beat like you’re in fucking high school again. 

This is ridiculous. You feel stupid. Just twenty minutes ago you were paranoid about this would-be invader of your personal space, but now you feel better about him because he’s handsome? It’s dumb. And dangerous. You don’t this guy from a hole in the wall but he makes you feel like your stomach is in free fall and you’re two drinks deep so maybe - maybe - this isn’t a bad idea. And maybe you want to get laid tonight. 

And - he’s getting up, grabbing his jacket. A pair of sunglasses you hadn’t noticed before catch 

the light from where they hang on his collar. 

Then he’s suddenly next to you, so close that you actually lean back a little in surprise. 

He’s even more handsome up close. Sits on the stool adjacent from you, his presence overwhelming, almost imposing and you’re startled to find that you don’t mind it. That you had been worried for nothing because he smells like - really good - and faintly of the alcohol he’s been drinking. You’re ready for the floor to open up and swallow you whole, atmosphere rich with the weight of the tension his appearance next to you warrants. 

This is unfair. You just wanted to relax a little tonight but now you’re almost certain he’s about to ruin every single one of your future sexual encounters with other people and he hasn’t even opened his mouth yet. 

“What’s your name?” Shit - uh - shit. He’s talking and you weren’t paying attention and now he’s going to think you’re an idiot and maybe you are because you definitely don’t do this kind of thing, especially not with someone as hot as him so like - what the fuck? His voice is mostly smooth, a little rough around the edges but otherwise a deep baritone, a slight accent hidden beneath the syllables as they roll off his tongue. 

You shift, looking down at your empty glass because you’re certain that if you continue staring at his face you’re going to combust, barely able to conceal your shudder; or brush away the images that infiltrate your head of that same voice against the shell of your ear accompanied by his hot breath and a few other things. 

Javier straightens a little, notices how you’ve yet to answer and thinks - _fuck_ \- did he come over to fast? Still, he smiles, keeps his expression open and earnest in the hopes of not scaring you off. 

He comes here nearly every night now; has gotten used to the regulars and the people who come in every weekend. The same rotation of faces with a few variants between the days. You’re new, though. New even to Colombia, maybe. You certainly don’t move with the confidence of someone who’s used to their surroundings which is (at least he’ll tell himself this) why he came over. Why he flagged the bartender and told him he’d be responsible for your tab tonight. To make you feel a little less like a stranger in a strange land. Maybe to make himself feel a little less like a stranger too. 

“I’m Javier- uh -Javi,” he introduces himself quickly, offering you his hand. “Where are you from?” 

The same creeping, intense feeling of being looked at is upon you again and it blankets your body in a scorching heat. Honestly - you think a little frantically - how is this even real - How have you managed to catch this guy’s fucking attention - and how come you’re about to waste this beautiful, incredible opportunity to have your world fucking rocked by a man who bleeds sex and charisma because you’re _shy_? 

“I’m-” you slip your palm into his own, swallowing hard as he shakes your hand. It’s a harmless enough question but answering it is hard when your brain feels like it’s being held to a torch - “Not Colombia. I just moved here last month. Figured I should finally explore the neighborhood a bit.” 

You balance whether or not you should tell him more and ultimately decide against it. You figure scaring him off with deeply personal details of your life and why you chose this country to restart might not be the best maneuver, even if there is something you instinctively trust about him. Call it your gut or intuition -whatever, it doesn’t matter - or maybe it’s the way he’s the first person to really talk and see you aside from your sweet, elderly neighbor that makes you want to open up to him; to finally get out what you haven’t been able to with your old life left behind. 

_What do you want to forget, his expression asks._

But then he’s shaking his head, chuckling.

“So you came here?” He sounds incredulous, silvery amusement in his voice that makes your chest swell and then constrict. Javier has a point. This place certainly isn’t five star, but so far the alcohol has been pretty good and the pretzels aren’t stale. You’ll call that a win. 

You laugh despite yourself, nodding. “Yeah, it’s close enough to my apartment that I can walk and the weather is nice tonight, so I thought - why not?” you shrug, catching your reflection in the shiny bar top. Sitting alone has given you plenty of time to reflect on what you’re actually doing here, but now confronted by this stranger you aren’t really sure. 

The conversation lulls. It feels like Javier might speak but he doesn’t, and you have the overwhelming urge to save this before it dies. 

“I’m sorry - I’m not used to- I don’t do this - I just came here to-” you blurt, facing him fully. 

“And you think I do?” Javier murmurs, cutting you off, his grin slanted, looking at you like he’s in on a joke you haven’t figured out yet. 

“No! No, that’s not what I meant to imply. It’s just that I’m me and you’re you and I don’t go drinking often is what I was meaning to say and it was really nice of you to buy my drinks, but I think I need to-” Christ what you need to do is stop talking but you can’t get your mouth to stop moving. 

“Relax,” he chuckles, placing his hand on top of yours; warm and solid and a little callused and so fucking _nice_ it’s unfair you won’t know him after tonight. “I’m just messing with you.” 

Fuck - if he’s honest you’re kind of on the nose, even if your insinuation wasn’t purposeful. Even on nights he sits down with only the intention of drinking somehow end up leading to much more. Like tonight, for instance. It seems when shit really begins to hit the fan (or Christ - even has the potential of getting up there) his long days end with this; cigarettes and booze and sometimes a different bartender depending on where he goes but it’s fundamentally the same song and dance. The same kind of chronic loneliness that follows him around. He tries to fill these gaps with other people - seeks some kind of immediate connection, but never allows himself something more permanent, more substantial and fulfilling. Not since Texas and not since working in Colombia. A kind of instinct to push people away before he has the chance to fuck it up and make them leave on their own. That way he’s blameless if things go to shit, and by extension guiltless for its downfall. 

But he’s really good at pretending. Like - so fucking good at it that you’re ready to jump him, entirely unaware of the heartache to follow. 

So you exhale shakely, taking his advice (or at least trying to), licking your lips, wishing your glass was refilled. It’s slow, deliberate; a sort of brave move on your part because you have no idea what the hell you’re doing but shit - it seems to be working because Javier’s eyes are drawn to your mouth, subconsciously mimicking your action then brushing his thumb against the corner of his own mouth. 

“Hey,” he’s leaning in close now, so close that you can feel his breath on your cheek. If you wanted - if you really wanted - you could turn your head and kiss him. Just like that. You won’t, but the potential for it is there. Yet you can hardly bring yourself to breathe in his presence let alone do something as bold as that. “Let’s dance.”

Javier moves back just enough to look at your face, eyes darting back and forth along your features, almost like he’s drawing a detailed picture of you in his mind. He settles on your gaze, his own dark and heated, still in an unexplainable way startlingly open - almost earnest. You roll your bottom lip between your teeth, fighting a shy smile. 

“I don’t know.” You already hate to deny him anything, guilt creeping up your throat, but the prospect of embarrassing yourself in front of him is much worse than his disappointment. “I won’t make much of a dance partner, I swear I’ve got two left feet.” You explain, running your index finger along the rim of your drink, staring into the bottom before timidly looking at his face. You catch him roll his eyes, exasperated, not trusting for a second you’re being anything but coy. And maybe that’s true - maybe you’re better at this than you thought and the idea of forcing him to work for it a little makes your belly erupt in flutters - hopeful that this’ll lead to more. 

“I don’t believe you,” Javier retorts as he stands up, taking your hand. He’s in your space now, speaking against the shell of your ear, tone so liquid and his body so intoxicating it takes all of your self control not to close your eyes and lean in to it. “And I don’t remember asking if that mattered.” 

He’s got you there and despite your reservations you really, really, want to know what the press of his body against yours feels like and dancing seems like the only appropriate way to do that without jumping the gun - it’s almost a little too easy to imagine him in wildly different circumstances; walking him back to your apartment, the lean line of his chest up against your back as you attempt to unlock your door, giggling when the keys fall from your hands - he’d get impatient, you think, and get it open himself. Then before you could lead him inside he’s barreling in already, shoving you against the nearest wall. 

Shit - right, okay. You gotta answer his question. 

“Okay,” you concede, glancing at your joined hands, “but don’t get mad when I step on your feet. I tried to warn you.” 

Javier grins, triumphant, and leads you away from the bar. 

The music is steady, low and thumping, different to the song that had been playing when you first walked in and a little louder. He stops somewhere towards the back - honestly you weren’t really paying attention to where he was taking you, distracted by the way he moved with such purpose, people parting for him easily, as if he commanded the very space around him - and by extension, around you. Which is like - so fucking hot and a sort of shameful pleasure is stroked in the part of your hind-brain that enjoys being associated with someone as intimidating as Javier seems to be - sinful only because you should know better than to think power is everything, but he wields it with such ease that you almost have no choice; following behind him, a little dazed.

Javier spins around, looks over at you. 

Your eyes meet - his are - _Jesus_ \- they’re hidden - partially obstructed by the lights but unmistakably sinful. You’ve been acutely aware of your own desire but now you’ve gotten a taste of his - visceral and hungry and so, so tempting. The question is: what do you do with it? What do you let him do with it? Because - because well shit, you came here to drink - to get more comfortable in a country you’re trying to call home and you had **zero** intentions of this - whatever it is - of - of - being wooed by some stranger whose name sounds so right on your tongue it’s like it’s your only language. 

He steps forward - just once. 

Your hips slot together and it’s like you’ve been ignited; set alight and left to burn. His thigh, warm through his jeans, presses lightly between your legs, heavy palms weighing on your hips. Every piece of you is energized - swirling static hovering in the air waiting for the moment something will shatter their suspension and send the pieces hurtling back down. The atmosphere has changed and you’re suddenly aware of him in a way you weren’t before - his physicality, how close he actually is - this person who could be anyone - how you kind of like the thrill of the unknown possibilities he presents. 

Javier sways and you follow. You try to concentrate on the rhythm of his steps, doing your best not to get lost in the slow burn stoking in your belly with each brush of his leg against your inner thigh. It’s unfair, you think, that he should have so much influence over you already. It’s kind of pathetic and you really should know better but the remaining tatters of your propriety are close to being shredded with each of his touches - heavy and full; caressing you with just his fingers initially then quickly graduating to his palms when he realizes just how sweet you feel, how he’d like to feel more. 

Fucking hell. 

Your skin prickles. Javier’s leaning down. You register what’s about to happen yet the first brush of his lips against yours is still surprising. It’s hesitant at first. He’s testing the waters, staring into your face for any hint of hesitation. Then it gets messy, a little frantic. He tastes like whiskey - sharp and overwhelming - cedary with a hint of something sweet. The taste of him is far more intoxicating than what you had been drowning yourself in earlier tonight. It makes you feel off-balanced, dizzy - your orientation lost, your orbit thrown off-center. His fingers spread across your hips, hot and rough and fucking _searing_ to the point where it feels like he might be branding you with them but you don’t care because he’s pressing into your mouth with his tongue and _groaning_ , low and deep within his chest. 

He’s leaning away and you follow desperately, pathetic and whining and strungout. His cock presses at your hip, heavy and hard through the fabric of his jeans and all you can think of is how badly you want to sink to your knees - the people around you dissolved into nothing. 

But then Javi’s speaking, blunt and abrasive - an edge to his voice that is both aggressive and pleading. “You gonna let me fuck you? Let me hear those pretty little moans of yours?” 

Your lungs feel like they’ve collapsed. 

If it weren’t for his support, you’re sure you would have collapsed into a puddle on the floor. Christ - who the hell is this guy and who the fuck is he turning you into? You aren’t against one night stands and you certainly aren’t about to ‘slut-shame’ yourself because shit - women are human beings with desires just the same as any other man - but you just don’t do this. Arguably, you’ve never done _this_ \- had some man who fucking oozes confidence and has the sex appeal to back it up - whispering in your ear about how badly he wants to be inside you. You cunt flutters at the thought and it’s enough to have you nodding, not nearly coherent enough to say anything. 

Javier backs you up and through the crowd of people, spinning you with hands on shoulders to guide you to the back, steering you into the nearest door. 

The bathroom is clean for the kind of inhabitants this place frequents. You’ve been in a bar bathroom before - never a men’s room, granted - but a bathroom nevertheless. This one looks okay enough; cool air pumping out of the air ducts, the club music muted yet still softly vibrating the walls. You’re barely turned around when he’s on you again, this time more ferocious. 

The counter digs into your lower back as he presses you against it. You’re pulling him towards you by the collar of his maroon dress shirt, one of his hands drags through your hair, tilting your head back and coaxing your mouth open, while the other rests at your hip, fingers digging into the soft flesh. 

You’re glad that you wore a dress tonight - some yellow slip you packed before you moved because you’d be living to a hot country and it turns out that your goddamn air conditioner is broken - but it’s been tucked away in your closet, forgotten and ignored until you decided earlier tonight that you wanted to go out - and well now - here you are: barely protected by the elements (nor Javier’s groping and heated gaze) nipples hard under the fabric, covered in goosebumps.

He leans away to look at your face, brown eyes hooded with lust. You pant, blinking at him with eyelids that feel heavy - gaze a little hazy, waiting for him to do something. Tension builds - his fingers in your hair tighten - time slows down; becomes molasses slow and just as thick. He could do anything to you, you think, and you wouldn’t fucking care. _Ruin my life. Hurt my feelings_ , you want to tell him. _Do it and then say that you’re sorry._

“So fuckin’ pretty,” he rasps, tilting his head to kiss up the column of your neck. He nips at the underside of your jaw then sucks a mark - a temporary reminder of what you’re letting him do to you tonight and okay - normally you’d be pissed off because you’ve got work and a nosy ass old lady that lives across the hall from you that somehow notices _everything_ so like, this kind of shit can’t fly - but you already like him so much. You like that he’s all over you like this. And maybe you’d even like the way your neighbor is sure to ask about him - and be given an excuse to give voice to your stupidly fast developing crush. 

You fumble with his belt, trying to steady yourself enough to get him undressed but its like everything he does to you sends your body into overdrive - and no amount of self-control will allow you to move your excited limbs properly. The leather gets stuck - caught in his belt loops - then stuck again in its buckle before you tug maybe a little too hard and it finally falls loose around his waist. The button of his jeans comes undone easily, then his zipper before you move on to stepping out of your underwear - the pace suddenly changing from syrupy slow to making you feel like you’re not able to move fast enough. Javier hitches your leg up, slots himself between your legs and bunches your dress up in his fist - then he’s rocking forward, the head of his cock pushing bluntly at your entrance. 

Your hands scramble, arms flying around his neck, fingers digging into his shoulder blades as he finishes the motion, rocking up - 

_“Oh **fuck** ,Javi-” _

Javier rests his forehead against your own, his every exhale blowing against your face - his nose nudging against yours, lips parted as he sets an unforgiving tempo. Already it’s almost too much; the way your body tries to regulate itself - the cool press of the sink and bathroom tile, of the glass behind you startlingly sharp compared to the smothering heat of everything else. 

The bathroom echoes every dull sound of his skin hitting yours - harsh and dirty and so fucking hot that you could cum from that alone. His hips snap forward and it hurts enough that you’re sure he’ll leave bruises but it’s the good kind of hurt - the kind that would make you blush if your synapses were firing in any other part of your brain that didn’t control pleasure and how could this fucking feels. Your blood feels like it’s boiling - pulse thundering in your ears and you can vaguely feel the slight sting of his buckle and zipper digging into the skin of your inner thigh - yet you don’t care, liking that it’ll be yet another mark left on you by him. 

“Wanna hear you talk, baby,” Javier’s voice breaks through the filth, grabbing your chin and tilting your head upwards so that he can look you in the eyes. For a moment you can’t say anything at all - everything too intense, too chaotic and relentless - and making eye-contact with him only makes these feelings surmount until they feel like they’re crushing your throat, your tongue heavy in your mouth. 

So you whine, pathetic and low and so needy that he actually _coos,_ stroking your hair. “That’s it, honey. Fucking shit- just like that.” 

Arousal pools low in your stomach, coils and makes your insides do back-flips - makes your cunt tighten around his cock and your entire being feel electric. You can feel that it’s about to snap and you’d be embarrassed if you cared but you don’t. It’s never been like this before - never felt so good and raw and _holyfuckingshit-_

The pad of Javier’s thumb against your clit makes you jolt - your hips rocking forward against his abdomen shamelessly. It’s overwhelming - too much all at once and you find that the world has suddenly turned white - blinding and sparkling. You back arches and your muscles tense, your legs trembling. Shivers wrack your body, one by one, leaving you shaking in his arms as his tempo falters, the buzzing of his charged, low voice bringing you back. He says something - gasps it, actually - before going still and then slumping forward. 

There’s a moment of silence that stretches even longer than the one you shared before all of this started. You lean back against the mirror and open your eyes to find that the world is too bright and that you feel sticky. Javier’s fingers dance in figure eights up and down the outside of your thigh idly as he catches his breath and you watch him - catching his smile. 

“What?” you ask, unable to resist your own from forming despite your confusion. 

“Never got your name, sweetheart.” 

You laugh, sweet and airy and it makes his chest tighten. 

“Y/N,” holy shit - how did you even fucking remember that after all this - “It’s Y/N.” 

He repeats it and it’s like you’ve been brought into being, like no one else has ever said your name before and now that he has you’re real. Almost like your name is the only word he’s meant to say. 

“Y/N…mind if I take you home?” 

Your pussy flutters and you both groan but you’re going to need a break if the night is headed where you think it is. 

“Just as long as you buy me another drink.”


	2. The Phone

Your phone rings and vibrates harshly against the wood of your nightstand, shrill in your otherwise quiet apartment. 

The sound heightens as your fogged mind begins to stir groggily, then all at once, making you grope in the general direction of the noise blindly in an effort to shut it up before you’re too awake to go back to sleep. Whoever is calling, they better be dying because you have no plans of answering this late at night otherwise.

Hand struggling in the darkness, you smack your knuckles against the unforgiving plastic. _Fucking shit._ You inhale sharply at the pain that blooms up your fingers, then cradle the aching digits to your chest, annoyance skyrocketing. You almost want to pick up the receiver, just to yell at the person on the other end for calling so late, but after a few irritatingly long seconds, it quiets. 

You sigh and hesitantly relax into your pillows. For a few moments after the phone stops you think you can still hear it ringing, the sound of it echoing in your ears. You silently will, flexing your fingers trying to shake away the pain, that they don’t call again. You’ve been disturbed enough, and although you could get up and unplug the telephone cord from the wall, you _really_ don’t feel like getting out of the warm confines of your bed. Any kind of movement right now seems like a hassle to your tired body, and all you want to do is get back to sleep. 

Closing your eyes, you begin to drift off again, pain in your hand and annoying phone call forgotten.

You’re just about to fall asleep; lost somewhere between dull, muted awareness of the crickets singing outside and the sounds of distant car horns; and lulling into your subconscious when there’s sudden knocking at your door. Three loud raps, heightened by the lazy, patient stillness of the night. 

Pushing back the covers, you’re furious by the time you exit your bedroom. Your anger blinds you to the fact that it’s well past two a.m. and that you aren’t expecting anyone. You know better, especially after Javier’s warnings, but the threat of some would be gunmen or kidnapper standing in the hallway is the last thing you’re thinking about. You just want a few hours of blissful unconsciousness. You’ve got work tomorrow, things to do, a fucking life to live, so whoever it is that is demanding to disturb the few hours of peace you get every night has immediately made themselves public enemy number one just on principle. 

Swinging the door open with so much force you nearly smack yourself in the face with it, you blink blearily as light from the hallway floods into your entryway, half-blinding you to the masculine form standing outside. “What?” 

Your voice breaks from disuses, sounding like a rock being thrown against a hard surface; hoarse and a little dry. It would be embarrassing if you could tell who is standing in front of you, but you can’t; at least not yet, exhaustion blurring your vision, the sudden illumination of your apartment making you squint. 

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Your visitor is speaking and in your haze you recognize who the voice belongs to; his smooth baritone something you’ve committed to deep memory. 

Javier stands with his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, looking down at you with a pinched, slightly annoyed expression. If you contained any clarity, you’d have realized that the irritated veneer he wears is having trouble concealing the worry that is spreading like ink in water underneath; little tentacles of it setting his teeth on edge, making his shoulder taut. It isn’t like you to not answer. He’s pretty sure he’s the only one who’s calling you aside from your mother, so when you left him waiting, listening to the dragging, grating back tone, he started to panic. 

Well, not panic. He wouldn’t call it panic because that isn’t what people who don’t care do. He isn’t ready to admit that this - _whatever the fuck it is_ \- has surpassed physical and is now dredging closer to territory he hasn’t touched since he moved down to Colombia. Javier has to constantly remind himself that the last time he tried to be a decent person, to do the better thing, he hurt someone _he did care_ about badly. It doesn’t matter if she forgave him or not. He hasn’t forgiven himself, and he will not be able to handle the same thing happening to you. 

“Sleep. Was sleeping.” _Motherfucker._ “Why are you here?” 

Valid. 

He hates it, though. 

He’s got no idea what he’s doing here, or rather he doesn’t want to pick and peel at the general understanding he has as to why he went crawling from the bar to the front door of your apartment. He gets it at a fundamental level, enough to realize he doesn’t particularly like the trajectory his heart is taking him, but he doesn’t dare discover anything more lest he be crushed by the weight of his love for you. Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? Love? But what does a man like him do with it? What _has_ he done with it? 

Nothing good. How could he have? Javier wouldn’t have been assigned to help catch Pablo if his higher-ups and the rest of the brass he falls under believed him to be anything less than a man who is willing to do what it takes in order to make sure Escobar gets what’s coming to him. Being exposed the way love requires people to be isn’t exactly synonymous with that goal. You’d be considered a distraction. They can turn a blind eye when he’s fucking informants because ultimately, it’s helping in the race to destroy the Medellin Cartel. Murphy’s already married. But Javier - Javier is the perpetual bachelor. The one who gets down in the mud; does morally grey things to get what he needs because he’s only got himself to worry about. _He’s the one who deserves to be there when Escobar goes down_ , so is he the man they need when he’s with you? 

No. Probably not. 

“I thought you’d be up.” 

You roll your eyes. It was a stupid question to ask anyway, you know why he’s here and it isn’t to fix your fucking A.C. 

Stepping aside, you give Javier enough room to come inside before shutting and locking the door behind him. He shuffles for a second, brushes his fingers along his mustache then scratches his eyebrow so that he’s got something to focus on other than you, and waits for you to do something; to say something, offer him coffee or do whatever the fuck just so that this weird tension that is building between the two of you breaks. 

Watching you, he goes back to years ago when he was first training to become an agent. Quantico, Virginia. Place fucking sucked. If there is ever a state that embodies the color grey, it’s Virginia. And maybe Ohio, but he didn’t spend a portion of his existence hating his life in Ohio. He was about as well-adjusted back then as he is right now. It was rigorous, and he doesn’t remember sleeping much. He lived off of cigarettes and caffeine for the better part of eighteen weeks, and learned everything and anything when he came to tracking down and interfering with drug traffickers. It taught him a lot. 

How to clear a room. How to read one. He learned how people work. Which ones could be potential threats and which ones are harmless. 

How to be an asshole, essentially. _Although he figures the U.S. government didn’t have to teach him that one._

But they never taught him this. How to deal with people he wasn’t chasing down, pointing a gun at, threatening or shooting. Javier can make his way through situations, smile and be charming; he isn’t some kind of psychopath, but years of hardening himself have made it difficult to act and feel like he isn’t lying to people. 

Javier thinks about a minefield, and the precarious dread that accompanies treading through one, painfully aware that any kind of miscalculation could ruin everything. 

So what is he actually doing here? What was the thing he missed? Which step is he going to take that’ll send him flying in a million different pieces? 

“Why the hell would I be awake right now, Javi?” 

He doesn’t have an answer for that one, so he remains silent. It seems he doesn’t have answers for a lot of things lately, especially when the questions involve you. 

“You want me to leave?” 

A sudden lurch of guilt pulls at his gut. Javier shouldn’t have come here. He’s always fucking doing this; overstepping bounds, not knowing when to leave well enough alone. It’s why he offered protection to the informants he was fucking, even when they didn’t want it. He could say he was doing the right thing, maybe, but that doesn’t feel right. That isn’t exactly it. He has no idea what he’s doing right now, just that he seems to be constantly ricocheting between doing too much and nothing at all.

“No,” you begin to walk towards your living room, looking at him from over your shoulder. “ _Stay if you want_.” 

Javier wants to be petulant. That wasn’t exactly an answer. He doesn’t do well with open-end-eds. Stay if you want. He asked if _you_ wanted him to _leave._

He looks out your apartment windows, into the city, and something in his eyes is distant and lost. You’ve seen it before a few times after you’ve fucked. It’s there just as the flame from his lighter illuminates his face, painting it in warm, disfigured shadows, then it’s gone within the seconds it takes for him to release the flint wheel and lean back against your couch. It’s the look of someone who’s seen far too much; has done far too much and been pushed to the breaking point, then shoved far beyond it. Perpetual anger. Exhaustion. All etched deep within his features. 

You didn’t have to let him in. He makes things too-big, too-bright, too- too fucking raw for you to deal with right now. It’s like his very presence makes you want to shed any sort of pretext. Yet for him its the other way around. You’ve gotten bits out of him before; punctuated instances far too tender to feel real, but he never allows himself to fully open up. And you understand it, you do. Fuck you’re probably too understanding. You try _really_ hard to pretend that it doesn’t bother you. Javier doesn’t owe you anything, much less his heart. There was no assuming that when he found you in some seedy, _too big_ and _too bright_ dive bar and offered you a drink, it would lead to anything more than a quick fuck in the bathroom. 

To make matters exponentially worse, you knew that too. You’ve been out enough to know that places like this don’t generally attract the best people. What that says about you, you aren’t sure, but you liked his smile. You liked his eyes - dark and expressive, far too charismatic to even be real but there he was sitting next to you at the almost perfectly polished counter, sipping whiskey that made you want to scrunch up your nose, making you laugh like you’ve never even heard a fucking joke before. 

Kinda pathetic then. Kinda tragic now. 

So uh, _whoops_ on your part, you guess. 

You round your couch, curl yourself against the corner of it and rest your chin in your palm. It’s cold and cracks the way old leather does when it’s being split open for the millionth time, a little scratchy against your bare legs. You’ve thought about getting a new one - probably should get a new one but as it turns out they’re expensive and there’s no way you’d be able to carry it up three flights of stairs by yourself. 

Just one of those things. 

The silence between you borders on uncomfortable. It’s heavy, suffocating, blanketing the room and materializing into something almost concrete. It’s a stark contrast to the way Javier drove to your apartment with the radio turned up as loud as he could stand it, grip on the steering wheel so tight that it made the skin of his knuckles a shade lighter. Fuck he doesn’t even remember how he got here. Just that he was nursing a glass of water, trying to sober himself up, then he was standing in the hallway outside your door. 

It’s what his life seems to be right now. A series of blurred intervals. Stupid fucking mistakes followed by their consequences. He can’t shake the feeling that coming here might have been one of them. 

He’s staring at you. It’s not so much that you see him doing it rather than a feeling of sudden awareness. It’s an odd feeling, not entirely uncomfortable, but not altogether pleasant either. Javi never really did answer your question and that’s probably why you didn’t really answer his. You two have an awful habit of speaking in half-truths. You wonder in the dimly-lit, back corner of your mind if this why you’re so unhappy when you look at him sometimes. Why you aren’t relieved to see him standing at your door instead of some masked murder. Masquerading, floating around feelings that should be taken a hold of and _felt_ is beginning to backfire; kicking back at you with the force of a gun. 

You need more than he’s giving you or nothing at all. You can’t take this in-between. 

“You should go back to bed.” _Yeah, you should be doing a lot of things right now._ The ache. The want and need still sway in your stomach. It’s even worse when he does things like this: when he shows up unexpectedly, seeking you out because he knows that he can. You like that. Feel a little proud of it even because instead of searching for some strange, warm body he’s come looking after you: he’s relying on you. 

But you also like, hate it immensely. 

Your gazes finally lock. 

“I’m not tired anymore,” you stretch your legs out in front of you, yawn into your hand. Javier almost snorts but he knows this kind of exhaustion, is all too familiar with it. 

It seems sort of counter intuitive that on workdays filled with bloodshed; with the burn of adrenaline that comes from running across dilapidated, clay shingle-d and metal covered roofs he finds himself sleeping just fine. Christ - it follows him. Makes him have outbursts, keeps him glued to a bar stool. Tonight, though, nothing had happened at all, so he won’t be able to sleep either, not that he’s anticipating being allowed to stay. 

“Should I be asking you what’s wrong?” Javier moves away from your windows and sits down next to you on the couch. He loses his jacket on the way, folds it over the coffee table and it feels far too intimate. 

You sigh, you bring your legs up and rub your eyelids until you see stars behind them, then open them to look at him again. “Nothing’s wrong, Javi. Just don’t particularly like it when I’m being woken up in the middle of the night for-” you stop yourself short and shift so that you’re facing him too. “What is this?” 

The agent blinks at you, then he’s looking down at his lap. “I don’t know.” 

Scoffing, you startle like you’ve touched a hot stove when he places his hand on your ankle. “I’m real sorry, honey.” 

For what is ambiguous. You’ll settle for its meaning to be just in general; a broad stroke to all the shit he’s done. 

“S’okay,” you let him drag your leg into his lap, let him brush his fingers along the soft skin; dancing in long figure-eights - up and down. You shouldn’t like it as much as you do in this moment, but he somehow manages to dissolve your anger and frustration and pain into nothing. It’s like they never existed. It’s like his fucking superpower. It kind of pisses you off yet that dissipates too. 

You really shouldn’t be letting him do this but he’s a double-edged sword and after the resurgence of emotion that accompanied his initial arrival you want to feel good again. You have no control over the slow-burning coil of warmth that sews itself in your abdomen, or the goosebumps that prickle along your skin as he edges his fingers closer and closer to your inner thigh. 

Life could go on like this; caught in an infinite loop. 

Javier moves - braces him against the leather and it fucking _creaks_ as he uses it to slide over your body. You sink further into the cushions, head against the armrest, his thigh wedged between your legs and his face so close you can smell the residual whiskey on his breath. You should be making the right decision for yourself; pulling back, telling him to leave, locking yourself away in your apartment until you have to go be like, a _functioning adult_ with a life that keeps on going even though he isn’t in it anymore. 

You should be smarter. 

You are smarter. 

But you don’t want to be so fucking lonely. 

For awhile you just look at each other, breaths mingling, air as thick as the static in the cones of light cast onto the dark sidewalks outside your building by the streetlamps that line them. Hues of orange and yellow bounce off silhouette. Similar and yet so different to how he usually ends his nights. This flame is warmer, sweeter, _kinder._ Instead of distorting it illuminates, soft in the way it glides along his features when he moves. 

And he does - downward, nearer; and you whisper his name, reverent and gentle. It nearly makes him grimace in anguish and his heart feels as if its been filled with cement and then splintered. You’re too good for him. He knew it in the bar and he knows it now. Just like Lorraine. But he can’t make himself stop. He can’t deny himself the one thing that makes him feel like he isn’t an entire piece of shit because you smile at him. You let him touch and undress you. Him: he who has done nothing even close to deserving of it. 

So maybe that’s what he’s sorry about. 

In step with how this night is going, he doesn’t think about it. Shit - he _can’t_ think about it when you’re beneath him, looking up at him with those beautiful fucking eyes that hold so much for him when they should hold nothing at all. 

“Javi…” There’s something about the way you say it that shatters him; the delicate, almost desperate whine in your voice. A longing he can’t identity because he’s _right here_. And so he smooths his hand over your hair, searches your face, so vulnerable and open, then kisses you. 

Fuck whatever he’s done with the DEA. This is what makes him a horrible person. 

It’s slow, sleepy, slightly stilted in the way just waking up feels. Perhaps you’re glad he called because this feels so good, so different to how he usually kisses you. Javier rocks his hips forward, suddenly feeling suffocated by the layers of clothing separating your bodies. You gasp, squirming, and make tight fists in his shirt. You spread your legs, seeking more, not turning away from him like he was certain you would when he first sat down. The bulge of his cock presses uncomfortably to his jeans, brushes against the damp spot in your cotton underwear and you fucking -

You roll into him, cunt fluttering around nothing. Exhaustion pulls at your limbs; makes them feel heavy and weighed down, and it mingles strangely to create a buzzing like a television after its been turned off with the way your every nerve feels like its been stripped to its bare components. Javier grunts, digs his fingers into the sofa, his erection pushing a little harder against your cunt. 

“Fuck, honey” his words pierce the air like a bird flying through a dark room despite how they’re whispered. He’s stopped caring about whether this is right or wrong. He can drink about it later. He’s focused solely on the friction and how you bend and mold to his advances. You want more; yearn for it with a desperation that makes your eyes water and your head feel like you’ve been breathing in smoke. “You’re breaking my fucking heart, baby.” 

He brushes away a tear with his thumb, kisses where it’s begun to dry. With his other hand, he pulls himself out of his pants. You haven’t stopped wriggling, lost and overwhelmed by the heat that blooms along your skin in a fire so hot it makes you feel like you’re burning, glowing and emanating a warmth that cools and simmers beneath his cool touch. “Mmh- _shit, Javi-fuck_.” 

Javier kisses you again but this time a little rougher; filled with more purpose. Your sleeping shorts come off easily; the soft fabric glides down your legs and for a second he forget to toss them to the side, gripping them between your bodies as he deepens the kiss, seeking more of you. But then he’s filled the urge to lean away, to look at your lips cherry red and swollen, then the cloth is being tossed aside and he’s creeping down your body. 

He stops just above your navel, hot air blowing against your stomach as he breathes. A moment passes. 

You make the most saccharine, pleading moan he’s ever heard and it makes his heart lurch. _**“Oh,”**_ you gasp, aborted and cut off like the very sight of him between your legs has sucked the air out of your lungs.. 

Red flushes your chest, creeps up your neck and blossoms across your cheeks. He’d be content to stay here just to look at you; to memorize how you are before he ultimately ruins you. Before he makes you sour and cut-off. That’s what he does to people. His entire personality is a toxic trait. 

But you’re opening like flower petals leaning into the sunlight so he doesn’t care. 

His thumbs hook beneath the lines of fabric that curve across your hip. He begins to pull at them until they’re sliding down, let’s you bend your knees to make it a little easier, then they too join the floor. All the while you pant, keening and rocking your hips forward without any real sense of direction. 

Javier settles himself and brings his hands to your cunt, reaching out to spread you open. Your breath stutters, muscles tensing, trying to anticipate his next move. He sticks his tongue out, swipes at your clit. Your eyes screw shut, lashes fluttering as he puts his whole mouth on you. Javier sucks gently, curls his fingers into your pussy. The agent looks up at you just in time to see your eyes snap open and your brows crease in tightly coiled pleasure. He groans deep from within his chest, cock twitching. The muscles in your thighs tighten and shake, toes curling until they hurt. 

“Javier, please, _**please.**_ Fucking shit-please don’t stop,. Just like that-” your words are nonsense, almost a cry or a sob - or something equally as frenzied in its neediness. His free hand snakes from his side and slivers to your neck, wrapping around your throat with just enough pressure that your pulse beats in your ears. His thumb glides along the artery, presses down on it while he licks a line from your entrance to your clit. 

And you tremble, then moan in a way that has your tongue choking, cutting off the last few syllables, and you cum - dig your nails into his hair, fracturing into little pieces. 

You’ve hit a landmine. 

Time pauses. Goes as slow as molasses. He gives you a break, lets you breath and stare up at the ceiling. Your ceiling fan spins lazily, recycling the scorched air. You watch the blades go round and round, almost indiscernible in the fluid darkness. It’s the first time tonight that there are no thoughts in your head, sort of like you’ve been rebooted. Let it stay here. Let him stay here. In the moments before the inevitable. Please. Just let you have this. 

“Gotta be inside you,” A voice calls out to you, muted by the blood rushing in your ears. He’s hovering above you now, cock heavy against the inside of your thigh. It’s enough to snap you back into reality, to have your pussy throbbing to be filled. 

“Yeah, okay,” you feel spun out and delirious, “take what you need, please baby.” You clutch his shoulders and he hisses, thrusting up and - 

**_Shit_ **

His hips snap forward. You shift a little off the couch, body rocking with each movement. Javier trails open-mouthed kisses along the exposed portions of your neck that his hand doesn’t cover, drags his lips along your jaw and whispers filthy things into your ear. “You fucking like this, baby? Huh? Like it when I fuck you like this?” 

Arousal, intense and blinding, eclipses your every sense. You can’t even answer him properly, you can’t even _think_. You’ve been wound too tight tonight. Stripped to your most naked form. It doesn’t matter that you’ve barely said anything of importance to each other. You don’t have to. He knows and you know where the two of you lie. 

You tense for a second time, arch off the chair and into his chest. And then you shiver, contracting around him until he groans - low and wrecked and broken - resting his forehead against your shoulder.

The first thing you notice when he sits up is how cold you feel. 

The second is that the sky outside is turning a light shade of blue; not yet dawn, but not quite night either. The birds will be awake soon. Your neighborhood will be alive with people and the sounds of cars. And Javier will leave because he has work. A job to do to protect these people; your neighbors. Or at least that’s what the government would like you to believe. 

You follow him as he returns to your hair, pushes some of it out of your face, then kisses your forehead. 

“Should I leave?” 

You close your eyes. 

“No. I want you to stay.”


	3. The Argument

“Why don’t you just say what you’re really thinking, Javier? Huh? You sure as shit let everyone else have it, so go ahead,” you make a wild, broad gesture with your hands as you speak, bleeding sarcasm and bitterness teetering on the edge of resentment from your fingers until it swirls around the room like a cloud of smoke, enveloping you both in a hazy screen of anger and hurt feelings. “Lay it on me.” 

God, how did this argument even start? He had walked through your door, said something about how you should keep it locked as he peeled off his jacket and kicked it shut with his boot, then he was on you like a man starved. It took you by surprise and it showed. You startled and he chuckled, taking you into his arms despite how you protested that he should knock, but you’ve never been able to resist him, so you let him kiss and caress you, let him get his fill until he’s so full of you he feels like he could burst; replacing (or at least masking) the frustration of his work day with the sweet drag of your lips and the smell of your perfume. He’s got you wrapped around his finger, bending to his will because you’re stupidly and irrevocably in love with him. 

And he knows that now, but you wish you would have never told him because your love hasn’t disillusioned you to reality. You’re a quick fuck. Javier isn’t the type of man to settle down. Maybe someone will be lucky enough to catch him when this fucking mess is over; when Escobar is dead or in prison for the rest of his life and Javier is no longer caught up in a goddamn goose chase; when the thrill of being on the frontlines of catching the most notorious drug dealer in the world no longer sparks excitement. When he’s too old to run down traffickers. When he retires. Or when he’s too dead to do anything at all.

That’s when he’ll give himself over to someone else. 

You don’t belong to that Javi. Hell, you don’t even know if you belong to this one. 

“Enough of the bullshit. I’m not fucking arguing with you,” Javier bites, standing up from the couch, tugging his pants back up to his waist, rezipping his fly and redoing the button of his jeans with more force than necessary. He goes for his pack of cigarettes and takes one out, placing it between his lips as he looks at from down the bridge of his nose. You want to snatch the fucking thing from out of his mouth and throw it at him, if only to get something more from him than irritated dismissal. You stand, naked as the day you were born, reminders of your previous activities drying uncomfortably on the inside of your thighs and developing in shades or purple and blue across your neck and chest, open and vulnerable. You love him to the point that it makes your teeth ache and all he does is _look_ at you, still so blind. 

“Are you kidding? That’s all you have to say to me? _I told you that I love you_. All I want is the truth, Javi. That’s all I’m asking,” you’re desperate for an answer; some kind of acknowledgement that either you’re alone in this or you’re not. You’d be okay, you’d get over it eventually, if only he’d say _something_. 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. The words had just slipped out; caught up in post coital bliss, drunk on his affection, you weren’t really thinking about your words until after you said them. 

Then he fucking, _like_ , freaked out. 

Things got convoluted and messy almost immediately after your confession. You got up, searched frantically for you clothing, tried to backpedal before you made it worse, then decided to stand by your words when you realized what a fool’s errand it would be because he knows what you said and he knows that you meant them too, and how despite the way it happened, it feels good that they’re out there. They had been suffocating you and every interaction with him since you gave them a name. However the weight of your secret was immediately replaced by the crushing anxiety of his reaction. He isn’t good at this and neither are you, so you weren’t expecting him to suddenly break out of the emotional veneer he keeps himself tucked away in because that wouldn’t be Javi.

But the longer he just stood there and looked at you, the more upset you got; helplessness pushing you to become defensive. 

So you began demanding an answer, your insecurities making you mean; grilling him about sleeping with other women, about his job and his drinking and those fucking cigarettes that make your apartment stink long after he’s gone. You stabbed at every flaw, expressed your grievances in ways that had your entire body flushing and your hands shaking. You gave him everything including your acrimony; fierce and piercing and so goddamn _lonely_ underneath it all.

Then Javier got angry too. 

And now you’re here: having a screaming match in the middle of your living room like you hadn’t just fucked, like you hadn’t just laid yourselves out for each other to memorize and adore; the hands that tremble at your sides are the very same that ran through his hair, the same lips that drip words like acid had been wrapped around his cock. You speak like you didn’t just say that you love him. It’s terrifying how quickly affection can go sour. 

He’s got one goal, he told you so himself. Get Escobar. There’s no space for anything else. One way or another, he pays. You all do. And right now you’re suffering. 

“What? I don’t know what the hell you want from me. To say that I’m not fucking someone else?” Javier speaks, finally breaking the silence with something more substantial than rejecting you. His voice holds a venom you’ve never heard before and it makes you recoil slightly, melting into yourself so that you feel less exposed to the sting of his words. “I’m not. You’re the only one,” he continues, tone losing its heat, taking on a heartbreakingly resigned quality. “But that doesn’t matter-” Javier sighs, lighting his cigarette, “because you’ve already painted this fucking picture of me inside your head that I’m just some asshole who’ll never love you. Trust me, you’re better off.” 

Your face burns as your ears start to ring. You never really understood what it was like for people to hear bad news: to be told something so devastating that their mind needs to shut off in order to keep itself functioning and let the body catch up. You get it now, though. The way the world freezes, how every thought feels intrusive. Your consciousness floats somewhere else for awhile, cognizant of your blurry vision and heavy throat, but everything else might as well be static. The hardest part about this is that he’s right. You had him pegged for someone else. None of your accusations were entirely unfounded, but you used the alcohol and his recklessness as building blocks to your assumptions until eventually you had this image of Javier in your head that you never bothered to hold up to the glass; never compared to the real thing. He’s called you out in it, so what the hell do you do now? How do you get him to see you hadn’t meant for any of this? 

“Javier, I-” you attempt to reach him weakly, chewing your bottom lip to keep back tears. “That’s not what I meant-” 

“No? It is what you meant,” he interrupts, blowing smoke out of his nose, twisting the bud into the glass ashtray on your coffee table until it’s extinguished before rising to his feet. “You want me to say it back and I can’t, so you’re pissed at me. I understand.” He’s calm now. You think you might prefer the yelling because it means you’re getting a reaction; his emotions mean he has a stake in this, but whatever fury he had felt has burned itself out or he’s swallowed to remain buried deep with everything else. Either way it isn’t there anymore.

He’s disconnecting and you can’t stand it.

Indignant and desperate to be listened to, you cross the floor so that you’re standing in front of him, trying to get him to realize that you didn’t and still don’t want an argument; that although your feelings for him are persistent and ever present, they don’t have to ruin what the two of you have now. You’d rather keep Javier than let him go, as pathetic as it sounds, and be silently miserable in the knowledge that he doesn’t see you the way you want him to because _at least you’d have him._ At least you’d get to be close to him, and be with him in a way that doesn’t always require love.

“Why? Why can’t you say it back? I at least deserve to know why the fuck we were doing this in the first place if it never meant a goddamn thing to you,” you demand, voice breaking, poking a finger to his chest. You met at a bar. He never hired you. You shared a few drinks, laughed at his stupid jokes, listened to his stories, then went home with him. The rest is history. You may have had him wrong, but have you really been kidding yourself this entire time? 

  
What’s the quote again? 

_This is love feel I, that feel no love in this?_

He stares down at you, breathing heavily; like he’s about to say something, but the air keeps getting stuck in his lungs before his mouth can formulate the words. Or like he’s second guessing himself, trying to decide if it’s even worth explaining his side of things when he knows that he’s probably going to leave and never see you again after tonight. His cynicism disgusts him but it’s what’s kept him alive. It’ll be easier to give up rather than fight for something he knows will only end badly. Javier tears his eyes away from you and brings a hand to his face, one that had regarded you with so much tenderness earlier but might as well be stone now, and rubs his palm over his mouth roughly. 

“I can’t risk it. I can’t stomach the thought of someone getting their hands on you because of me,” the agent admits, hoarse with grief he’s barely managing to conceal. It takes a lot to push Javier. Once the dam is broken, however, he can do little to fight the way his emotions bleed into his actions, into his expressions and the way he speaks. Most of the time its anger he’s fighting to keep hidden, but right now it’s vulnerability. 

Javier is all too familiar with having the responsibility of someone’s life in his hands. And he’s sickeningly acquainted with the guilt that accompanies failing to do his job. He won’t let you end up on his list of casualties. 

“That’s what you wanted to hear, right? Well you got it.” 

Stunned into silence, you watch Javier purse his lips when he realizes you’re not going to say anything. Brown, distant eyes scan above your head and around your apartment, his hands on his hips as he figures out his next move. He should go, he thinks, because if you’ve got nothing left to say, then neither does he. Better that this ends anyway. Who knows how much longer he’s got in Colombia. Or with the DEA for that matter. Shit’s beginning to hit the fan, so he might as well get you out of the crossfire by adhering to your expectations; be a dick, don’t let this drag out any further than it has to and save you the trouble of getting over someone you thought was decent. 

Your body reacts faster than your mind can keep up with; propelling you forward without thinking of the consequences; whether this is a good idea or not doesn’t even cross your mind. Javier, clearly caught off guard, staggers back slightly, catches you by your hips, then grunts, startled, when you kiss him. It’s just you, initially, and you nearly pull away once you realize what a fatal mistake you’ve just made, but then he’s kissing you back: all teeth and tongue, nipping and tugging at your bottom lip. 

“So fucking mean,” he grunts, backing up until his knees hit the couch, taking you with him as he lowers himself onto the cushions. “You make me so fucking angry. Act like a child.” 

“Shut up,” you gasp, letting him eat your words as he pulls you closer by the back of your neck, his rough palm squeezing the hair at the base of your skull. You rock into him then, catch your clit against the fly of his jeans, showing him just how _mean_ you can get. “Don’t want to hear another goddamn word.” 

Javier listens. Stays quiet because he knows that the last thing you want to hear is him justify why he can’t let himself love you. Despite what’s happened, he doesn’t want to hurt you; he isn’t looking to twist the knife, to make you cum one last time before leaving forever. Fuck you might even hate him now that he thinks about it. He’s given you no reason to continue loving him like you have and every single reason you shouldn’t. 

You think about pulling away from him, about kicking him out. He could be gone, out of your life, within seconds. But then you remember the broken A.C. You think about how he spent his one (1) day off in weeks trying to fix it. How he even borrowed some tools from Steve, who sure as water is wet made fun of him for turning into some _“fucking handyman”_ for a chick he bangs on the low. You think about how he sweated his fucking ass off in Colombian heat taking it apart only to find out that the piece he needed wasn’t even sold in the country anymore. You think about the broken lamp. How he went and bought another, dropped it off with a shrug, said it wasn’t a big deal when you hadn’t even expected him to remember, let alone replace it. The checks he’d write you when you were late on rent, panicking because you needed the money for groceries but you’d rather be hungry than homeless. And you find yourself feeling so guilty you begin to cry again because he may not fucking say it, but he does love you. 

“Hey, _**shit**_.” He’s pulling away, disobeying, but you’re following anyway, whining, breathing hot and labored against his face as he tries to figure out what the fuck is happening right now. Javier grabs blindly at your wrists, trying to get you to look at him in the face. You wrestle against him, fighting to get your hands free when he jostles you slightly, slamming your brain back into focus. 

“I said don’t fucking talk, Javi.” you grit, continuing to roll your hips against his denim clad lower half. You want to be mad. You want to feel hurt and pissed off because you’ve just made a goddamn mess of things and this is the only way you can get it all out without destroying yourself and then him. Javier’s expression twists in a grimace, like he’s fighting to keep his lip from curling up as he tries and fails to keep you in place. He isn’t used to being spoken to like this by you and it only serves to further your motivation to make him work for it. 

He had made his own assumptions too and now you both look stupid. 

There are a few tense seconds where you glare at each other, waiting for the other to back down, to submit. His temper only serves to fuel your own, caught in some kind of stupid, fucking staring contest with a man you both love and resent simultaneously. Your feelings conflict with each other, fight the way you and Javier are now, but instead of their battle for dominance providing clarity, a clear winner, it’s only made you more confused. 

Javier looks away first and you blink in surprise, given a front row seat to the way he frowns, then looks at you again with something close to hopelessness in his eyes, hardly concealing the muted anger that still burns beneath it. He’s barely got your name out of his mouth when you’re interrupting him.

“You don’t ever listen, do you? The least you can do is get me off.” You rip your arms out of his grasp and with a little more force than necessary, push at his chest until he’s resting against the back of the couch. Then use his shoulders as leverage to lift yourself up and lower yourself down on his thigh. You’re so worked up that you’re vibrating, your undulations becoming more erratic, your cunt grinding against the rough fabric in a way that has you jolting back yet coming back for more; the stimulation too much and not enough. You want his cock, but you won’t ask for it; won’t let him have the pleasure of being inside you. 

Javier pants, follows your movements, grips your waist and forces them to move in time with the way he flexes his leg. Time slows down, the tension created by your fighting hangs in the air, a string that gets tighter and closer to snapping the closer you get to your release; waiting to break and crash with you. 

He’s reaching into his pants, you register, looking down at the space between your bodies. He struggles to undo the button with one hand but he manages, snaking his palm around his cock and pumping it to the pace you’ve set on his thigh. He makes sure to look at you, to meet your gaze before you throw your head back, already knowing the kind of affect watching him get himself off has on you. The groan that crawls its way up your throat is unholy, a mess of his name and some swear word you weren’t even close to enunciating. Arousal spreads through your stomach like ink dripping in water, slithers up your body until it feels like you’re choking on it. You’re so close you can feel your muscles already bracing themselves, you pulse fluttering like a little bird inside a cage, throwing itself against the bars, desperate for release. 

His hand, the one that’s sure to leave bruises on your hips, glides up your body until he reaches your neck. Long, dexterous fingers snake around your throat, his pointer finger pushing down your bottom lip. Then he’s _squeezing_. Not enough to be dangerous, but it’s just the pressure you need to send you hurtling over the precipice. You cum hard, already so strung out it didn’t take much. 

In your haze you recognize that his hand moves faster, with more purpose. The sounds that fill the room are filthy, the beat of his hand making you flush. You still want so badly to be agitated at him but you can’t find the energy anymore, and let Javier sink a finger in your mouth as he reaches his climax, groaning between clenched teeth when you circle the tip of the digit with your tongue. 

You sit there in his lap and stare at each other as you fight to catch your breath. Before it can turn into another standoff, you look away and blink with heavy eyelids into space. Javier carefully removes himself from his jeans, hissing quietly. He looks around for something to wipe his hand on before deciding to just wipe it clean on his stomach for him to deal with later. 

“Can I speak?” 

You close your eyes and wish you were somewhere far away. Somewhere where you weren’t making things worse for yourself. Where heartache doesn’t exist and neither does broken A.C. units. 

“I guess.” 

“I can’t say it…but you know, right?” 

“I know, Javi,” you whisper, feeling far away as you crawl out of his lap, your bones like jello. Javier leans forward, picks up his forgotten cigarette and lights it.

What’s the quote again? 

_The course of true love never did run smooth._


	4. The Baseball Bat

Your front door slams with enough force to shake your windows, and for half a second you’re convinced a grenade had gone off down the street. 

But there are no blaring car alarms. People aren’t screaming. No dogs are barking. You don’t smell smoke. There aren’t any sounds of sirens or police whistles. Nothing. The neighborhood is as quiet as it was when you went to sleep. Peaceful, even. 

Then you remember that you had locked it. 

The sound of boots stomping down the hallway; heavy in their purpose as they advance towards your room. Bolting upright and tripping over your heavy, sleepy limbs and the blanket as you get out of bed, you try to remember what Javier told you to do if something like this ever happened. Do you hide or go out the window? Jesus if this fucking thing doesn’t unlock you’re going to kill your landlord if you aren’t murdered first and haunt his ass if you are. Fuck, Javi’s gonna kill you too; you forgot to lock your bedroom door and the noise is getting closer. _Where’s your pepper spray?_

Confusion and panic mount in your system, turning your insides into static so deafening and overwhelming you don’t hear Javier’s voice as he calls out for you, like he had been since he stepped through the threshold of your apartment. He knows better, and maybe you should too, but most of his visits are preceded by a phone call. You aren’t expecting anyone this late. 

“Jesus Christ!” Javier barely ducks in time, bringing his arms up to protect his face in the off chance that he hadn’t calculated correctly and somehow managed to find himself still within the range of your swing, curling himself against your doorway. 

The baseball bat, luckily, doesn’t connect with anything because you stop mid motion, staring at your would be intruder with wild eyes as you fight to recognize him in the inky darkness. Your palms sweat against the grip, forcing you to adjust the position of your hands, but then you lower the weapon; your senses finally catching up with your brain. 

_“HolyShitJavierYouScaredMe.”_ You exhale through your nose, doubling over yourself in relief. The bat drops from your hand to the floor with the ping metal makes when it hits a hard surface, reverberating against the walls of your hallway. Javier stands up straight again, running his hand through his hair before placing them both at his belt, staring at you in mildly irritated bewilderment. 

“You were gonna hit me with this?” He questions, almost incredulous, bending down to pick up what you’d just dropped then inspecting it, turning it around to look at the barrel. What you thought this would do against someone, he isn’t sure. It’s a little tee-ball bat, aluminum, more likely to bend once it struck a hard surface than actually do any damage to anything. Worry he’s been working to stifle blooms in his chest. You wouldn’t have stood a chance if he was a real threat. 

“Not _you_ , but yeah. My window wouldn’t open,” you explain, bringing your hands to your face, still recovering from the shock of realizing you aren’t in any danger. “And I couldn’t find my pepper spray. I mean Jesus, Javi. Why didn’t you call? It’s like, three in the morning.” 

Your annoyance is matched by his expression. You’ve seen it a few times before and have learned what it means. Brows set. Gaze hard. Nothing good. The specifics of the situation vary. Could be something as stupidly frustrating as having his hands tied by bureaucracy and being saddled with paperwork all day or something as detrimental as getting in a shootout with a Narco and a suspect getting away. Either way you know what he wants and so he’s answered your question without having to say anything at all. 

But it had to have been _bad_ if he didn’t think about calling before he showed up. 

“What happened?” You don’t make it a habit to ask. Colombia is a beautiful country, but you aren’t ignorant to what happens inside it. You get more than enough information about bombings and slaying from the news daily than you ever hoped you’d get in a lifetime. Your resentment for Pablo Escobar nearly matches Javier’s and his trips to your apartment aren’t meant to be in depth discussions about politics and the DEA and that fucking murderer. They’re meant to let you escape, you and him, away from the bullshit and into each other. Your own little sanctuaries. And maybe that’s unhealthy and you’re both incredibly maladjusted, but it works. You take care of each other. You’ve got so many reasons not to be with him, but you haven’t got any good reasons for being alone. Even if it’s confusing and hellish and you lose too much sleep over him.

You’re making an exception to your rule now because you’ve never seen him this bothered. Trouble swims in the deep pools of his eyes and he smells like the tequila he’s been drinking, residual and not entirely unpleasant, but you know now that he had gone to the bar before he decided to crawl his way to you. Whatever is bothering him he must have been unable to drown while there. The cigarettes must have been little help too. 

So that means it’s your turn. 

Javier takes a small step back as if recoiling from the very memory of what he saw tonight and brings his hand to his mouth, wiping it in disgust, looking at you until he can’t bear it anymore and has to look away. “Carillo he-” the agent sighs sharply, his anger renewed and mounting, “he shot a kid tonight. Put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger,” Javier scoffs, shaking his head as his lips curl in disgust. “To make a fucking point. Couldn’t have been older than twenty.” 

His outrage is justificable. There are ways to deal with things. It won’t be pretty all the time or even moral to some _(sometimes you gotta do bad things to catch bad people),_ but he doesn’t have to explain why what Carillo did was so disturbing. He had crossed a line; toed it for awhile and maybe it seemed like he was going to tip over the edge, but tonight had been the night he finally took that leap. Javier had always said he’d do whatever it takes to catch Escobar. Carillo had taken that philosophy to the extreme. It’s understandable. He’s got more at risk. _But to just shoot a fucking kid?_ A kid who probably got involved with Escobar in the first place to pull himself out of poverty? The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. It’s hard defending that. 

You stand in front of him at a loss for words. What could you possibly say that would make this better? Sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it. You can say that you hate what he has to see and deal with everyday until you’re blue in the face, it still doesn’t change anything and he doesn’t need your pity. He chose this job. He knew what he was getting into when he transferred down here. Life goes on. Tomorrow things will continue like this never happened. The DEA, Carillo, the Colombian and American governments, they’ll all continue to wage their war on Pablo like they have been for years with no regards to that kid’s family, to his friends, to him. The bigger picture is always more important.

So like, what the fuck does that leave you to do? 

“Fucking hell, Javier. I-” you walk over to him and place your hands on his shoulders, then bring one of them up to card through his hair. “Are you alright?” 

“No. I’m _not_ fucking-” the agent is struggling to restrain himself, his eyes wild. He isn’t really sure if his fury is entirely founded in Carillo’s actions or if they are planted in some other pot he’s yet to identify. There’s a lot he could list: he could pick and choose from all of the DEA’s shortcomings, from President Gaviria’s refusal to to make a stance on either side of the fence to protect his ass while his citizens die at the hands of a madman, to President Bush and his ‘war on drugs’ all the way to his suppressed feelings for you and how he feels entirely inadequate and undeserving of your love and affection because he worries about getting you killed on a daily basis. 

He’s got like, no time to work out or sort through any of that, though, so his repression often worms its way out as anger that roars like a house on fire. 

You can’t imagine the kind of conflict waging war in his head right now or how helpless he must feel. The Search Bloc got what they wanted, you figure. That’s a win in the eyes of many, maybe even to Javier too, but he isn’t some unfeeling extension of American law and order. It would be troubling if he _weren’t_ bothered by this. You weren’t even there and you feel sick to the stomach. 

Javier catches you off guard by surging forward, capturing your lips in an unforgiving kiss so abrupt you have to remind yourself to breathe through your nose. He doesn’t finish his sentence, but it isn’t like he has the eloquence to really put into words how the fuck he’s feeling anyway. When bullshit is being constantly thrown at him, it’s easier to just internalize it rather than let any of it out knowing he won’t be getting a break from it any time soon. If he lets himself be overwhelmed by his own life he’ll become consumed by it and doing his job will become impossible. Takes a monster to catch a monster, right? And that’s all Javi wants. He’s too invested in this to go grasping at otherwise. Letting himself be vulnerable might as well be like kicking bricks out from under his own foundation; he’ll go crumbling to the ground with a loud crash and a puff of smoke, crushed by his weight. 

He’s all teeth; nipping, tugging, biting. It’s nearly suffocating. His presence is heady, a heavy blanket of smog in your tiny apartment. You’re used to the way he seems to take up so much space, in general and in your life, but it’s different right now. Javier’s aggressive in his pursuit of you, dedicated solely to the way his lips glide over your own. He’s shoving tonight away by force; letting it be swallowed by _you_ instead; inundated with the urge to just disappear. 

You start to trip over your feet as he steps forward and sends you moving backwards towards the wall, pressing you against the cool plaster. Javier uses his weight to keep you pinned there, but you’ve got no complaints. You like this side of him just as much you dislike it. There are healthier ways of coping, your rational brain knows this, yet it makes no objections to the way he gropes and grabs by the handfuls because _fuck_ -it feels good and it makes Javi feel good too. He shoves a knee between your legs, uses it to press himself against you and to keep you in place. His lips detach from your own, but your kiss hadn’t quelled the chaotic look in his eyes. If anything, it’s only made him more hungry. Lips, bright red, set in a light pout as he stares down at your face, brown eyes searching-for what, you aren’t sure, but the intensity of it almost makes you look away. 

His thigh flexes against your cunt and you gasp at the suddenness of his movement. You immediately yearn for more, instinctively beginning to rock your hips against his jean covered leg. He lets you take what you want from him, ducking his head to press warm, slightly chapped lips down the column of your throat, sucking a mark bright red and yelling to the underside of your jaw, right atop your pulse point. “You like fucking yourself against my leg, baby?” he grunts, nipping on your earlobe. “Look so fuckin’ pretty like this.” 

You could melt and become one with his praises. Your clit throbs with each one, enunciated by the hoarse drag of his voice as he speaks. It doesn’t help that it’s been longer than you’re used to without seeing him. A few weeks, actually; punctuated only by the rise and fall of the sun. It’s embarrassing (and terrifying) how attached you’ve grown to him. You’d never dream of confessing your true feelings, but you don’t have to: your body does it for you. You feel far too easy, already soaking wet, your panties stuck to you uncomfortably. Javier isn’t bothered by it, his cock pressing heavily against the meat of your own thigh, brushing against it with every roll of your hips. His restraint is barely concealed, tense as he worships your body. 

The only thing on his mind right now is you. You’re the only person who’s ever made Javier really consider what the fuck he’s doing here. There was this other woman, once, years ago that had gotten close, but he had figured she was better off without him: made himself an asshole that day, and probably ruined the image of him in her mind forever. The way he sees it, he had dodged a bullet for her. Then there was that protestitute; the writer. She poked and prodded and for awhile he let himself out bit by bit, but that ultimately went to shit too. 

Then you came along. A stranger he met in a bar who complained about her drink but continued to take sips of it anyway. You’ve got him wondering what the fuck comes after this: after Columbia and Escobar and the DEA. What kind of life is waiting for him? And does it include you? Does he even want it to? 

_Yeah,_ he thinks, watching your head tilt back in pleasure as you work yourself on his thigh, _he does._

He turns you around so suddenly that you yelp, the broad frame of his body pressed against your own, his erection poking into your ass. You want to scream at him for pulling you away without warning because you were so, so close to being where you wanted to be, but now you’re left feeling entirely unsatisfied; arousal pooling in your stomach, making your pussy ache with want. You push yourself back against him in desperation, a whine sharp on your tongue. “Can’t just do that to me.” 

He’ll just have to ask for your forgiveness later. One hand moves to the center of your back, rough fingers splayed across the sweet skin beneath your night shirt. It’s a flimsy little thing, hardly protecting you from the chill of the hallway and the striking heat that Javier is giving off behind you. Your nipples brush against it uncomfortably, in a torturously slow way, your breasts moving with every movement he makes. You want Javier to take it off of you, but you also sort of like that it’s on; he’s so needy for you that he isn’t going to remove what he doesn’t have to. 

His other hand makes quick work of his belt, the sound of metal clanking against metal as he works the leather through its buckle out of its loops mixing with the sounds of your labored breathing. Your abjection for him only spikes, your heart pumping in anticipation as the noise that follows is his zipper. You look over your shoulder and down at the space between your bodies, watching as Javier takes himself out of his boxers. Your mouth falls open and you moan unabashedly at the sight, your view sending shock waves of lust through your body until you’re practically buzzing with it. 

It makes you grow impatient. He wakes you up in the middle of the night, gives you the fucking scare of the century, then sort of makes fun of you for it. The least he can do is get you off quickly before sleep overcomes you again. 

You attempt to grind into him, a small noise of frustration slipping past your lips. You don’t want to be teased tonight. Javier’s got a lot of pent up tension you want him to use on you but you lack the patience to wait for him to get there. 

The palm Javier has on your back slides down, squeezes your ass, snakes across your waist, then slips into your panties. You exhale audibly, knowing that blissful relief is coming, letting his fingers take what they want from you. “Filthy girl, already so wet.” 

You buck into him but it isn’t enough. “Come on, Javi. Just fuck me like I know you want to.” 

The agent shoves your underwear to the side, then slides into you without warning, immediately setting an unforgiving pace. You rest your forehead against the wall, the air coming out of your lungs in short bursts, choking on the sounds of your own pleasure. His fingers creep their way back up your spine, relentless in the pursuit of every bit of you. Javier takes a fistful of your hair once he reaches the base of your skull and tugs, forcing you to look up at the dark ceiling as he fucks into you from behind. The sweet little moans that you sing have him thrusting into you harder, forcing you to brace yourself against the wall. 

“Fuck, baby. Nunca he sentido un coño tan bueno como tuyo en mi puta vida,” Javier grunts, voice hot against the shell of your ear, emphasising his sinful words with a few slaps to your ass. He rubs away the sting, coos in your ear about how well you take him, then does it again; groaning lowly at the way your cunt flutters around him. By the end of his assault, you’re left stinging and bright red, each swat of his hand having gone straight to your clit. 

Overwhelmed, your eyes begin to water. It’s all too much and not enough simultaneously, abrasive and saccharine. The dull sound of his skin hitting yours is harsh, dirty, and fills the otherwise silence of your apartment so apparently it sounds almost like it echoes. You hope to God that none of your neighbors are night owls, but you can’t find it in yourself to care whether they hear you or not. All that matters is the drag of his cock inside you. 

“Not gonna last much longer like this,” Javier is so _wrecked_ ; high strung and liable to snap or fracture, or _break_ at any moment, so he’s forcing the words out; giving you warning. “Rub that pretty little clit for me, baby.” 

You don’t have to be told twice. You jolt and let out a high pitched, pathetic whine at the first drag of your fingers against the bud; sensitive from neglect. When you go to return your hand, Javier swats at it and replaces it with his own delicious fingers, working you through the initial waves of shock without mercy. He’s rocking into you, rough and chaotic, and you can feel it; hot and blinding, growing more and more catastrophic until it turns into a white, blinding heat. 

But the rough pads of his fingers don’t stop moving. You’re delirious on pleasure, overcome by it and left feeling boneless. Your own hands grasp aimlessly at the wall, fingernails digging into the paint with so much force you think in your haze that’ll you have left little crescent shaped indentations. 

Javier pulls out of you and cums hard on the back of your thighs, hot and sticky as it begins to drip down the rest of your legs. Slowly, carefully, he eases his hold on your hair, then messages your scalp. You close your eyes and relax into it, letting him relieve the tension that had been beginning to painfully build. You feel like maybe you should say something, and you think that maybe you would if your brain was capable of coherent thought. Your mind feels like a destroyed circuit board with all the sparks and wires exposed and crackling. There’s a lot that you’d want to say, to ask him. His problems haven’t just disappeared. 

But you also feel like not saying anything at all. 

Javier rests his forehead against your shoulder, brushes his lips against the soft skin before separating himself from you entirely. He turns you around then kisses you deeply; slow and sensual. The kind of kiss that makes you miss him and he hasn’t gone anywhere yet. He’s the first to break it and you have to resist following him, flooded with bittersweet affection. He’s destroying you and you’re letting him. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“No.” His answer is immediate. Final. 

You nod and look past him, catching a glimpse of yourself in the glass of a painting hung across from you. What is all of this coming to? What’s the point? 

“Come to bed?” 

Javier looks down at his watch. It’s quarter til. In two hours he’ll have to be up and actively participate in his life. There are always more bad guys to chase. Always more drugs to seize. More money to be made. The ball keeps rolling. On and on and on. Tomorrow he’ll face Carrillo. He’ll face Murphy. And maybe if he’s very, very lucky: he’ll face Escobar too. 

“Yeah,” he exhales, delayed. Uncertain. 

“Let’s go to bed.”


	5. The Gunshot

“I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, Javi,” you speak in a muffled, strained voice, tearing off another piece of medicine tape with your teeth. Your hands haven’t stopped shaking since he got here, trembling to the tempo of your rapidly beating heart, thus proving themselves to be useless in their effort to stop the bleeding, and for whatever reason this goddamn apartment doesn’t contain a pair of scissors, so: you’ve improvised. It isn’t sanitary, or efficient, but that’s the least of your swiftly surmounting problems. 

“Well,” he exhales, then hisses as the movement sends shooting pain up his side, “I was hoping you’d find gunshot wounds sexy.” 

He wasn’t thinking a lot, really, just that needed to get the fuck out of dodge.

Why the _fuck_ isn’t he taking this seriously? He could have died. Hell, at this rate he might still die, but he spouted off some shit about Murphy, about hospitals and a pool hall and _goddamn sicarios_ , so instead of taking his ass elsewhere for proper treatment, he found you. His girlfriend? Booty-call? Labels don’t seem to matter because he’s _here_ and he’s getting your fucking couch dirty. The only thing you know for certain right now is that you are _not_ a goddamn surgeon and that you’re relieved you don’t own any white furniture. 

“That isn’t funny,” you scold, pinching the skin of his stomach together on both sides of his cut. The butterfly stitches you found in your first aid kit probably won’t hold, but at least it’ll stop the bleeding. You hope it will, at any rate. He got lucky the bullet only grazed him instead of going straight through. If it had, he wouldn’t have made it five feet from where he was shot, let alone to your front door. “Do you have any idea what it would have done to me if you didn’t-“ 

The rest of your sentence gets lodged in your throat, resting at the back of your tongue, a metallic and bitter pill.

 _Christ how would he_? Feelings are dangerous, uncharted territory for the both of you. The euphoria of sex drives you to say a lot of things, but once his pants are back on and his cigarette is lit the quick flash of flame that ignites from his lighter might as well signify the end of your vulnerability. His job doesn’t afford him many luxuries; emotions, family, stability. All of it will be just outside the bounds of his grasp for as long as he works for the DEA. And you know this because you’ve listened to him talk about Steve and his struggles with Connie to keep their marriage healthy despite how doomed it was the second he was transferred from Miami. You know that, and yet:

The world spins a little bit more than it has been and it takes all of your self control not to throw up as images dance across your subconscious. You don’t dare finish your sentence, to say anything that could be twisted into fruition. You aren’t stupid. What Javier does is dangerous. You knew this when you started fucking, and you’re incredibly aware of it now. The circumstances aren’t any different. The only thing that’s changed is that you’re irrevocably in love with him. Like an idiot. Like someone who’s asking to be taught a lesson.

Javier looks at you, his expression softening into one of guilty remorse. He didn’t want this for you, still doesn’t. The terms of your relationship (unspoken as they are) have always been blurry, despite how clearly you both seem to think you see them. He was thinking that you’re the only person he knows who would answer the door while he’s standing there, clutching his side and panting, even though that danger is sure to follow. You wouldn’t dare be associated with him if it were otherwise. 

So he knows how you feel. He knows how devastated you’d be if something happened to him because he’s aware of how _fucking_ _destroyed_ he’d be if god forbid something happened to _you_. His power only extends so far. You’re too stubborn to give him up, and he’s too selfish to ever let you go, but he can at least ease his conscious some by extending an offer to keep you safe; moving you out of Colombia, for one, has been something he’s suggested enough times to make you wonder if he’s just trying to get rid of you. Other times he’s saying that he shouldn’t be around you; that he won’t be coming over anymore _(you never believe a word he utters, though, the sweet drag of his lips against your neck as he says them betraying you both)._

But he worries until he’s nauseous; until he’s pacing the floor, getting distracted, slipping up. Until he can’t bear the thought of not knowing where you are; what you’re doing, if you’re safe. It’s why he always comes crawling back, and the feeling he’s left with every time he leaves grows stronger and more abrasive like un parásito. A goddamn leech that feeds off his misery. 

Is this what it’s like for them? For _Narcos_? To be so addicted to something you’d do anything for it? 

“Hey, look at me,” Javier instructs, voice startlingly calm. He’s used to speaking like this, even despite himself. De-escalation is probably something they drill into their heads until it’s second nature. Part of that is remaining a voice of reason; never yelling, maintaining eye-contact, speaking clearly. All the bells and whistles used to quail criminals, but you aren’t a hostage, and his tone sets your teeth on edge. 

Still you listen, instincts giving way to your motivations. 

You regret it instantly. He looks tired; brown eyes circled in shades of purple and blue. His face has taken on a paler shade, his endearing wrinkles and laugh lines deeper, making him suddenly appear much older than he is. It’s a nightmare. Uncanny in all the worst unsettling ways. 

“Javi…” you sound pitiful to your own ears; voice splitting as it hits the lump in your throat, harmonizing with itself as it’s forced past it and out of your mouth, words tumbling out slowly like stones in wet grass. He may not be dying, but he got _so fucking close to it._

He immediately cuts you off, shaking his head. “No,” he begins, then adds more firmly: “ _No_. Stop. Enough of that fucking shit right now.” Javier sits up straighter on the sofa from where he’s tucked against its corner, his large hand pressed firmly onto his side, trying not to jostle himself too much. He fails, and clenches his jaw and hisses through his teeth as the movement send tendrils of piercing discomfort up to his ribs anyway. It’s the first time you notice that he’s trembling; his entire body vibrates like he’s been dunked in freezing water. You don’t have to take too many guesses as to why: the adrenaline, the injury itself, exhaustion. All three are most likely taking its toll on him. 

“I’m fine,” he speaks again once he’s recovered from the initial waves pain, residues of it making him spasm slightly. Javier knows saying that means little, even if it’s true. Right now, it doesn’t _seem_ like he’s okay. In fact, he’s pretty much on the other side of the spectrum on the verge of falling off. Until he’s no longer clammy and leaking blood on your couch, he’s _not_ fine. But that’s not what you need to hear. You need to be taken off the ledge before you go jumping off of it. 

“ _ **Look at me,**_ ” his tone is fierce and soft simultaneously. You hadn’t even realized you adverted your gaze until he called your attention to it, leaning forward slightly to catch your stare and force you to see his face again. All you can focus on, though, is his bandages. Tape is all that’s holding his cut together right now. You want to reach forward and grab the dressings from where they still sit, folded neatly in their paper wrappings inside your first aid kit, but before you can do anything he’s grabbing you by the chin.

“Take a deep breath and calm down,” Javier instructs, his hold on your face gentle, the pad of his right thumb stroking the soft skin of your cheek. His grip loosens as you do as you’re told; inhaling shakily, exhaling with a rattle. You feel strung out; like you’ve cried without pause for hours. Your lungs feel just as spent, like they’ve hiccuped for breath so many times it’s left them sore and unable to work properly. You could go to sleep like this; just close your eyes and be gone, blocking out the visions of Javier’s blood soaking into and staining your cushions, drops of it no longer in your entryway, drying on the hallway floor leading to the living room, on your hands, caked under your fingernails and leaking through his shirt. Suddenly, none of it would be real anymore. The idea is appealing. Escape while you can, and wake up when things are better. 

But that’s not how things work. 

“It grazed me. That’s it. Just a cut.” He won’t say it could have been worse because the both of you are more than aware of that. The saying also carries with it an inherent property of diluting the magnitude of a problem. The last thing he wants to do is make your feelings, the ones you feel **for** and **because** of him, invalid just because the endgame hasn’t happened.

“But, it-it looks so _bad_. I-I-I-,” you stutter filled with anxious energy as the realization that if he doesn’t pull through, it’ll be your fault plants itself in your head. “W-we should have gone to the hospital-“ 

Javier purses his lips and closes his eyes, sighing deeply. “I know what it looks like, baby. I just need you to listen. Can you do that? Tell me you’ll do that.” 

You nod, clamping your mouth shut, doing your best to do as he’s asked despite how your fears fight each other and you to work their way past your lips. 

“I am not dead. I am not dying. Here: feel.” He takes a hold of your hand and brings it to his wrist, placing your first two fingers on his pulse point. At first you’re horrified and attempt to pull back, afraid he’s going to subject you to having to feel as his blood pressure drops and stutters to keep him alive, but to your amazement it’s steady. A little weak, and it skips a few times, but it’s consistent. If he’s learned anything during his time working in this country, it’s that if something is bad, it’s probably worse than he thinks. Maybe he accidentally rubbed it off; his cynicism keeps him alive, but it’s almost annihilated you. 

“I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. Do you understand me? Come here.” 

“No Javi, you’re hurt,” you protest, glancing down at his abdomen The very last thing you want to do is cause him further injury. Christ you aren’t even sure you took care of it properly; making it worse somehow would be crushing. 

Javier tugs you towards him by your forearm anyway, his other hand moving to cradle the back of your head. You aren’t able to resist him and follow easily, crawling into his lap. “Enough. I told you that I’m fine,” he answers tenderly. 

“Tonight was too close, Javier.” 

_Way too fucking close_. What a fucking living hell it would have been getting that phone call. Would it be Murphy? Would he have the decency to come to you in person? Surely he would. Maybe Connie would be with him, to soften the blow a little. 

Or would it be the police? Some man you’ve never met giving you the worst news of your life.

Or would it be one of Escobar’s men, there to add insult to injury? 

“ _Fuck_ , I know,” he sounds apologetic, his fist in your hair tightening slightly. 

“Do you?” 

“Yes.” If anyone knows how damn close it was tonight, it’s him. But he comprehends what you’re actually asking without having to say the words. 

_Do you understand it would have killed me too?_

Then he’s on you like fire to gasoline. There’s something carnal to the way he’s kissing you; desperate to pour every ounce of his resolute affection and love out of his body and through yours. Tonight had caught him off guard, much like he’s catching you off guard now. 

“Javi,” you whine, trying to lean away. He follows needy and insistent, deaf to his name as it tumbles past your lips. “Javi,” you repeat with more force, “baby, you need-fuck, Javier, _you need to rest_.” Your protests are only half hearted. The same need fills you without surrender. Having sex right now is a profoundly stupid idea, but your judgement is clouded by the haze of exhausting emotions. You’re sure you had gone through nearly every stage of grief in the span of twenty minutes. Now that you’re sure he’s okay, or at least as okay as he’s going to be for right now, your brain craves something less taxing to occupy itself. 

“Please,” he blinks up at you, half in a daze, “ _please_.” 

Javier has never begged for anything in his life. Him doing so now almost makes you want to check if one of the stitches had come loose, but you know better. It isn’t anything physical that’s driving him to beseech you like a sinner at an altar. Comfort. Security. _Safety_. These are things he finds in you absolutely. The rest, the things he _seems_ to let himself get lost in are just vices. The cigarettes. The whiskey and tequila. Just something to hold him over until he can crawl his way back into your arms and be granted a real reprieve. 

“Y-yeah,” you’re nodding, adjusting yourself in his lap so that your fingers can make quick work with his belt, “gonna take care of you-gonna-” you get lost in your own thoughts, images flickering across your mind to the last time he fucked you. He was pissed Frustrated with some mission gone haywire. You didn’t ask the details because they were important to you, but because you knew the more Javier spoke out loud the ridiculousness of the Colombian and American governments, the angrier he’d get. All that mattered was that Escobar was one step further away from being captured. And that made Javi _furious._

You hadn’t even made it to your room that night, and he broke your goddamn lamp. You briefly remember that he’s yet to replace the item, but arousal pools heady and thick in your stomach, flicking away the annoyance as you recall how exactly it went shattering to the floor. He had laughed, despite himself, strained and a little haunted, then apologized. _‘I’ll get you another one. Fuck-give you anything you want, mi amor.’_

“Give you anything you want,” you echo his words back at him, hands making quick work with the button and fly of his jeans. “Just don’t-” you’re surprised by the catch in your throat, but you really shouldn’t be. All this worry and fear was bound to find its way out sooner or later. “Just don’t leave me.”

“Never,” he grunts, choked and breathless as your palm slides down the front of his pants and strokes his cock. “I promise.” 

Later he’ll realize it was stupid to make such an assurance. It was stupid to make it earlier, too. What position is he in to be making any kind of promises? There’s only so much influence he holds; which, in the grand scheme of things, is very little. He’s got bosses. His bosses’ bosses. The fucking President and Vice Minister of this country and more brass in the States than he can keep track of to answer to. He can pull some strings locally because he’s respected and listened to, but ultimately he can’t ever guarantee anything. 

Yet if anyone deserves his unwavering devotion; his infallible commitment, it’s you. 

Javier grips and gropes without a real goal; he just needs to feel you beneath his fingers, purchase himself on something solid. His reality, especially on nights like these where things go horribly and horrifically wrong, has a habit of disassociating itself. Perhaps it’s his mind’s way of protecting him. He could have let years of shooting, being shot at, living in a country at war with its own people, and witnessing awful acts enough to make someone green expel the contents of their stomach consume him. Or he could shut himself off to it to keep his sanity, not realizing his humanity was paying the price. 

When all that shit comes flying back at him, his mental barriers weakened and collapsed, it’s like the whole goddamn world is ending. 

So he hides himself in you. In your flesh and your smile and the way your hair smells. The things he can fill his senses with until that’s all that occupies him. Until he’s filled with _you._

The drag of your hand is sinful. Your muddied mind whispers that you probably should have worked up to this instead of diving right in, but as Javier tilts his head back and cants, you know that he likes it; a little pain with pleasure, able to feel every bit of your hand as you work his cock. You use his precum to make it easier, thumb circling deliciously around his tip, then pumping downward on his shaft, but his pants don’t make it easy. 

He must be thinking the same thing. Ignoring the needles that accompany such a movement, he lifts his hips just enough to tug his pants down his waist, inhaling sharply through his teeth as the denim rips slightly at his skin just below his cut where blood had dried and adhered the fabric to his hip. The oxytocin flooding his system keeps it from hurting as bad as it should, the adrenaline rebuilding in his system from being so close to you dulling it as well until it subsides again into a dull ache he can ignore. 

“Take yours off,” he rasps, tapping your hip. You want to object. Tonight is about making him feel good, and you know better than to think that he’ll make you do all the work, even if every thrust is accompanied by throbbing pain. He senses your apprehension, though, and makes rapid progress on undoing your jeans, pulling them down as far as they’ll go until you have to stand up to tug them all the way off. 

He groans at the sudden absence of your warmth, erection pressed and fighting against his boxers. 

You take your time to look at him, then, watching the rapid rise and fall of his chest beneath his yellow dress shirt, pointedly avoiding the dark red stain that has bloomed and crusted at the edge near where it would fall by his bellybutton. He had taken off his jacket in your doorway, leaving him almost entirely exposed. He watches as you watch him, eyes hooded and vision hazy. His eyes flick down to your fingers as they dance at your sides for a moment, then you’re on him again. The little plastic buttons move easily through the front placket, revealing the tanned expanse of his chest. 

“Lose the shirt, too,” he speaks from below you, already grabbing ahold of your wrists and urging you to raise them above your head. Quickly, you tug the fabric upwards and toss it to the side, just as revealed to him as he is to you. 

Javier talks more than you thought he would during sex. His honeyed words flow freely, praise accentuated by the pull of peppered kisses and the sharp nip of his teeth. At first it was only physical, then as time progressed his compliments developed into prose, sometimes in English, mostly in Spanish, deep and steadfast. _How good you are to him. How much he misses you when he’s away._

Sometimes you believe it. Sometimes you let yourself get lost in it without thinking. Those nights don’t end well. 

Tonight whether his words hold substance is the furthest thing from your mind. Everything is far too raw to be disingenuous; you’d see through his facade immediately. Words and emotions that are otherwise hidden move freely between you two like water, gentle waves lapping at each other’s’ hearts. This is no longer just about sex; about making each other feel good until you’re both spent and he leaves. It’s about healing. Fixing each other; repairing the damage done by keeping true feelings locked away. 

You bring your hands back down and cup either side of Javier’s face, digits resting lightly against the back of his neck. Your chest feels like it might burst with the suddenness of emotion that fills it. _He could have died tonight_ , it whispers, twisting the adoration with misery. You almost say what you’re thinking, then, barely catching yourself in time. Three words that would be so easy to mutter. But would he even believe you? Would it break the fragile tenderness holding you two together? 

Lips catching his own, you keep your tongue from uttering anything at all. Typically it’s a battle for dominance. A dance. He retreats, you advance. He surges forward, you move back. Not now, though. You don’t fight him. You let Javier take what he wants, following his pace eagerly as he kisses you open mouthed and filthy. 

You begin rocking into him slowly, gradually, relishing in the wicked friction of your clothed center against his cock. The pleasure that shoots and blossoms through your cunt like electricity through a socket makes you pant, and reminds you that you’re supposed to be doing all the work. 

Agile fingers slip beneath the waistband of your panties, already shamefully wet from your activities and sticking to you uncomfortably, collecting slick in your palm before retreating. The heat of Javier’s gaze as you do this is oppressive; warm brown eyes swallowed by black, his cock jumping at the sight, synapses making the connection, and realizing it’s implication. Still he groans, bristles then relaxes as your hand works it way into his briefs and takes ahold of his shaft, palm lazily caressing the sensitive skin. 

“Carajo, como así,” he grunts, thrusting shallowly in time to meet your hand. His injury keeps him from moving properly, something you’re both very aware of, so you place your free hand onto his tummy. Normally it wouldn’t be enough to keep him in place, but this is an extraordinary circumstance; one you’re going to take advantage of in his favor. 

“Gonna take care of you, honey. Don’t worry,” you coo, fist gliding upwards. You toy with his nipples, glide your fingers through his chest hair, then let your hand rest at the junction between his neck and shoulder, thumb pressed lightly against his pulse point, using him as leverage to lift yourself up and sit on one of his thighs. All the while you continue to pump his cock, working steadily towards his release. 

Sweat begins to coat your skin in a sheen layer. You can feel beads of it roll down your temples, down the valley between your breasts and the dip between your shoulder blades. The A.C. had gone out days ago; another item in your apartment either missing or broken. The lack of it has turned your living room into a sauna. Javier’s hair sticks to his forehead, his neck slippery beneath your gentle hold. He looks delicious; thoroughly debauched. This is the best part about fucking him. He always looks so put together. Even though you know it’s a front, often times you itch to see him undone. 

And when you do it’s a sight you drink up like water. 

Rough fingertips slide up the length of your body, starting at your hips. They play with the elastic of your underwear, dip and prod, tug and let go. _Admire_. Then their journey moves north, tracing along the softness of your skin, caressing feather light. Eventually he reaches your breasts, his destination, and he cups them in both palms. “Hermosa…” he whispers, voice like gravel. He tugs the cups of your bra down until your boobs are exposed to the stifling heat, your nipples hardening instantly. You feel him twitch in your fingers, cock already impossibly hard. 

“Please, Javi.” It’s your turn to beg. He’s relentless in his veneration. If you’d let him, you think he’d be content to just stare. You’d grown self conscious if you didn’t have his erection in your hand. 

Javier leans forward, looking up at you as he gets close enough to your chest that you can feel the hot air of his breathing, his mouth, wet and warm, enclosing around one of your tits. He groans, sending the sweet, static-y vibrations of it through your chest and you gasp in response, lifting your upper body skywards, aching for more. 

You two work in a rhythm like that for so long you get lost in it. When he isn’t attending to your breasts, his mouth climbs up and down the parts of you they can reach; lips searing and slightly chapped, leaving what feels like burns in their wake. A days worth of stubble and his mustache leave your skin raw in the best, tormenting way, and it’s getting more and more difficult to ignore the painful want that has nestled itself inside your cunt, pulsing and aching with each pump of your heart. 

Before you’ve realized it, you catch yourself grinding your clit against his thigh, soaking the muscle in your arousal. Javier catches it the same time you do, and catches your hip before you stop, tugging you forward, encouraging you to continue to chase your release. 

“Supposed to be-supposed to be taking care of you,” you manage between stuttered breaths, all the air being sucked out of your lungs when he flexes, sending jolts of pleasure through your body. Your wrist has slowed down to a crawl and you know he has to be hard to the point of hurting by now, but he hasn’t said anything, getting off on the sight of you before him. With renewed purpose, you pick up speed, the sounds that fill the room indecent. Later you’ll have to remember to apologize to your neighbors and close your windows. 

“Wanna make you cum. Wanna make you- _hnnng._..wanna keep you safe,” he rambling now, lost in the sweet cadence of your movements. He switches between languages, stanzas of fidelity spoken without remorse. He’ll think about it more when you don’t have your hand down his pants. 

Javier, in an effort to keep to his word, pushes your panties to the side. Two fingers sink inside you easily, scissoring and curling, grinding against your clit with the heel of his palm, fucking you at a steady rate. Desire curls tighter and tighter in your abdomen with every motion, the calloused pads of his fingers tormenting in the best way. It takes everything in you to keep from pressing yourself further into his hold, wanting to see Javier through just as badly. 

He’s rewarded with the most pitiful and pathetic moan he’s ever heard; one that crawls deep from your chest and slides up an octave on its way up your throat, somewhere between uttering his name and choking on it. He almost cums right then and there, biting the inside of his cheek so forcefully his molars tear into the spongy flesh. 

“Got me on a fuckin’ string, baby,” he grits through his teeth, closing his eyes; the energy it takes to keep them open devoted to keeping himself held together. He isn’t going to last much longer and you both know it. He glistens beneath you, scorching to the touch, dark skin shaded in hues of pink that bloom from his chest and across his cheeks. “Gonna fucking kill me.” 

_No, you think, a little delirious, not me._

Then he’s cumming into your fist, ropes of his seed hot and sticky and beginning to drip down your knuckles. You work him through it, careful and gentle, fingertips brushing lightly against his balls until he’s twitching and sensitive. 

You shake from exertion on top of him, the muscles in your thighs taunt and aching, the coil inside you getting tighter and tighter, waiting to snap. You bring your free hand to your clit and rub quick little circles, the need for your own release growing stronger the longer you watch him strung out on his own high; a sight you’ll never tire of. The coil within your stomach breaks, sending your toes curling and your head backwards, his fingers still pumping despite how exhausted he must feel. 

The both of you go slack against each other, and several long minutes pass before either of you attempt to move. Cautiously, you slip your hand away and bring your fingers to your mouth. Javier watches with half hooded, tired eyes as you lick yourself clean, his overstimulated cock jolting to life almost painfully. 

You lean down and kiss him, then, sweet and slow. Everything feels like its been blanketed in a cloud of smoke; teetering between actuality and a dream. It’s only when you go to brace yourself against his stomach that reality comes crashing back down around you again. 

“Shit, _shitshitshitshit._ Javi, you’re bleeding again.” 

He looks down dumbly, then leans his head back against the couch and rolls his eyes. Sleep has never called to him more than it has now. All he wants to do is shut his eyes, drift off into unconsciousness, but this injury is already a bigger pain in his ass than the goddamn narco that shot him. 

You fly up onto trembling legs and take the gauze from out of the kit, hurriedly ripping the paper open and tugging the white fabric out from inside it. You’re shivering again for an entirely different reason, body and mind still trying to catch up from the sudden juxtaposition. Placing the bandage over his cut, you hold it there, then use the tape you had forgotten earlier to make sure it stays. You want to do more, feel like you have to do more, but he’s pulling you forward again. 

“Quit. We have to get you real help-” 

“They’re only gonna slap me with a fucking medical bill, you know that.” The weight of his hand as he brings it to his forehead is so heavy it feels like he’s dipped it in cement. Come morning, he knows the bleeding will have stopped. That isn’t to say he won’t feel like he’s been hit by a semi-truck, but he won’t be going with the Lord anytime tonight. The trouble is getting you to believe him. 

“You know I don’t do funerals.” 

Your lips twitch despite yourself. Christ if that isn’t true. If he had it his way, you’re pretty sure he’d just disintegrate into nothing, disappearing into the unknown like freaking Yoda. 

“Not even your own?” you ask anyway, reaching for the blanket you keep draped across the back of your couch. Slumber calls to you just as irresistibly as it does your lover, its siren song getting stronger as you move to tuck yourself into his side. 

“Jesus, _especially_ not my own.” 

For the first time in as long as you’ve been dancing this dance with him, there is no tension once things are said and done. Javier doesn’t itch to drown his feelings, you don’t feel the need to get him out of your apartment as soon as possible. For once, ironically, things are at peace. 

“Love you,” you mumble on the cusp of falling asleep, brain too fried to comprehend the severity of your confession, or register the soft baritone of his voice when he says it back. 

“I love you too.” 

_You’ll think about it later._


	6. The Hand

“I can’t fucking believe you. This was so **stupid**.” **  
**

Your words sound far away and somehow too close simultaneously. As if walls of glass had been erected on all your sides, your voice bouncing off their dense surface and echoing, being thrown back at you; foreign and familiar. Harsh and maybe a little too mean even to your own ears.

“Yeah,” Javier agrees quietly, tone hoarse with shame, nodding his head even though you aren’t looking at him. His ‘I know’ is silent as well as his ‘I’m sorry.’ 

He should have gone back to his own apartment; should have sat in his bathroom, the blue tile cool against his heated skin, the lights too dim for him to really see properly because he’s been meaning to change the bulbs but hasn’t gotten around to it yet, the old filaments and near broken contact wires casting everything in a yellowish glow. He should be doing this himself, ripping off medical tape with his teeth because he’s got one functional hand, his other hung limply over the sink to keep from staining the bath mat in splotches of dripping cherry, hitting the floor like ink. A beer (which would be what - his seventh of the night?) with the label half torn off from his irritated, subconscious scraping would be left to sit at the edge of the counter, it’s cap somewhere forgotten, the bottle chilled with droplets of water rolling down its neck until he somehow sends it shattering to the floor, his temper spiking as the glass breaks and the alcohol spills. 

He should be getting so _furious_ that he gives up on healing himself and nearly rips his medicine cabinet off its hinges, or off the wall entirely in his search for a bottle of aspirin before dumping a few into his mouth and going to bed, blood dripping; leaving a trail like breadcrumbs to his bedroom. 

There’s a lot he should be doing. 

Even more that he isn’t. 

And yet.

Javier watches as you cradle his hand as if it were the broken wing of a bird, your fingers ginger in their ministrations as they wrap his knuckles in gauze. The blood that pools in the shallow cuts on his skin immediately turns the fabric red, stark and flashing as it blooms through and soaks the white cloth. It’ll hurt like hell in the morning, his fingers already bruised and swelling; deep shades of purple, blue, and green splotched and growing like budding flowers. The beginnings of what feels like atrophy are already settling in, the joints within his palm as tense and sharp as metal wires. The rough, uneven brick wall he had made impact with had left little serrated indentations, razor thin and just as painful, hidden partially by discoloration; still very much apparent to the both of you as the sting of them travels up to his wrist, his fingers jerking in your hand. It might be broken, but he can’t be sure, and he doesn’t have time for hospital visits. He’ll spend most of the night just sitting there waiting to be seen, stuck in the stifling heat, the ER smelling of people and disinfectant. It just isn’t worth the hassle, or the risk of being there and getting called into work (funny he wasn’t thinking that at the bar). Nor does he feel like worrying you unnecessarily (although it’s a bit too late for that) after putting you down as his emergency contact. It isn’t his dominant hand anyway, so he’ll live. This can’t be any worse than the time he got shot. 

Except somehow it _is_ worse. He can’t stand the way you’re looking at him. All bunched up, tired. The same expression you wore the last time he came to your apartment injured is on your face now. At least then he wasn’t able to fully process it; the implications and weight of the sadness and anger that clouds your eyes and roughens your voice, lost in the fog of his pain, mercifully blind to the absolutely devastated way you looked at him. He was killing you. _Is_ killing you. Bit by bit tearing away at your flesh. Carving into the bone. You’re letting him, too. A willing victim. Letting him chip at your fragile veneer until there’s nothing left for him to dig into, to use the meat of your body as clay to fill his own cracks. Until there’s nothing left for him to take. 

What are you to him except a resource? A person who warms his bed at night? Someone to change the rhythm of his days?

You don’t know and he won’t really say.

But it would be _unfair_ to him and yourself if you believed that that’s all this is. He also rebuilds you. He isn’t entirely callus or selfish. Slowly. Piece by piece. He takes what he won’t allow himself to give back but he at least repairs a little with each kiss; with the way he checks and rechecks your locks at night; with the way he tries to fix shit around your house; with the way he worries without worrying, the kind of quiet stress he refuses to acknowledge. There, always, settled like a stone in the back of his head. Thinking about you during the day, wondering if you’re safe. His hand will drift to the phone more than once, taking on a mind of its own, daring him to dial your number. Especially on days when there’s nothing but the heat of the sun as waves of it lazily bounce off the street, and the sound of small fans scattered throughout the office, lifting papers not weighed down, the little strip of green or red paper attached to the fan’s face whipping with the force of the mechanical, artificial wind that blows just short of his desk.

 _What if_ , they say, and he thinks of Connie. Her frustration and her fear. How it could easily be your own.

He’s struck with the idea that if he wanted, he could tell you what you said that night. It’s very clear you don’t remember and for reasons he doesn’t want to dissect he hasn’t brought it up again; hasn’t allowed himself to admit that he said it back. Not because he doesn’t love you but because he does. The validity of his feelings for you have never been in question. Just their warranty. Just their purpose. He doesn’t bring the joy to your life that you deserve. The serenity and peace that should accompany being with someone that makes you truly happy. It would be cruel of him to say those words, _mean_ them, and never put them to use. 

Your expression is gathered in disappointment and worry, lips set in a small frown. He’s scared you again, but this time it really is his fault. Going to the bar has become routine; drinking, smoking, watching whatever game is on the television hung in the corner and contemplating whether or not he’s capable of loving you the way you need him to; the way he wants to, and drinking until his vision becomes hazy when he realizes that maybe he shouldn’t. That maybe he can’t. He had hurt Lorraine; had decided to commit himself to her and then backed out of it like a coward instead of being honest with her and himself from the beginning. It doesn’t matter if she had forgiven him. He still did it and he fears doing it to you too. 

You wouldn’t forgive him. If you gave him that kind of trust and he ended up breaking it, you’d never want to see his face again. You’ve gone to too much trouble just trying to reach the point you’re at now. Extending that line, stepping over it and then extending it again. Then fucking _erasing_ it. Destroying it like it never existed would be the worst thing he could possibly do to you beside this; showing up to your apartment bloodied and half-deranged. And Javier would take it too. He’d exit your life like he hadn’t been in it at all and let you live your’s without the fear of _this_ happening again. You’d be happy. Eventually. Hopefully. He’d be miserable but that’s okay because at least he isn’t making you hurt anymore. 

“Honestly what were you even thinking getting into a fight like that?” 

Your voice startles him back into reality; back into the sting of his hand, the pressure of your fingers as they tape the gauze together.  
  
Javier isn’t sure how to answer. He isn’t really sure what to think of anything these days if they aren’t within the confines of his own dejected pessimism. His father was right when he said that moving down here would change him. Their conversation runs through his head now and he feels as if he’s there now; how cold the air was that night, how anxious he was to get out of that shitty-deadbeat town and make something of himself, how the radio filled the silence he couldn’t bring himself to fill with honesty. He hadn’t believed him then, remembers how the truck felt way too hot even though his dad had taken the key out of the ignition. It’s the kind of suffocating frustration that is what truly takes him back; the itching for something different, for something to change.

He remembers being faced with his life and his choices and deciding that he wasn’t going to think about it at all. The chips would fall where they lay. The same kind of idiotic mental processing a young man his age would justify, thinking he was invincible and that these were problems he didn’t need to think about. Believing the world was out there for him to hold in both his hands. The process is a little different now that he’s older but it’s core is fundamentally the same. What the fuck was he thinking getting into bed with Los Pepes? Very different than the Medellin Cartel yet somehow the fucking same. _The enemy of my enemy is my friend until he isn’t_ or some horseshit like that. He could lose his job. Get sent back to the town he was desperate to escape. He could get you hurt and Christ he wouldn’t be able to take that. 

And so of course his father was fucking right. And he’ll continue to be right when this nightmare is over. He’ll fly back to Kingsville a different person; return to a life that feels foreign because he is a different person, thrusted into some past life. He’ll be held against a scale by the people who knew him and be found wanting, he’s sure of it. _Fuck_ \- and they’ll praise him for the changes; call him a hero because they can’t see the fucking blood on his hands. Even if it doesn’t work out the way he wants; even if he doesn’t deserve the glory and the hardy pats on his shoulders and the cervezas held high in the air in his honor. Even if he had to become a monster to catch a few.

But that’s saying he lives through this because there’s no guarantee that he will. Bullet proof vests only do so much. Maybe that’s why you’re so flustered about his hand. It’s a symptom of something more reckless. Of the listless energy that swirls around inside him and makes him angry, makes him dangerous and stubborn, and _so. fucking. stupid_. 

“I don’t know,” he admits, finally _(finally)_ answering. “I was drunk.” 

You scoff, the sudden tears that blur your vision surprising. It isn’t so much grief (although part of it definitely is) rather than the frustration you feel at Javier’s apparent disregard for the effect his actions are having on you. A sense of dread often overcomes you, almost vertigo, at all you don’t know and all you can’t mend; suddenly so apparent that they feel tangible, floating in front of you like objects, just out of your reach. Javier’s complicated. He’s lived a whole life before he met you; has worked for the DEA for a long time, and it feels like he’s been chasing after Escobar for even longer. Who are you to fix the damage that was done when you weren’t around to repair it when the wounds were still fresh? Is it your responsibility to take care of him now because you love him? Despite all the fucking warning signs? 

Because you can’t stand that he’s punching walls? Or getting into pointless fights to feel something else other than a deep, unwavering and unshakeable numbness? 

The kind that developed to counteract how much he actually fucking cares because if he let himself really, truly consider everything and everyone he’s ever encountered while in this country he’d collapse in on himself like a dying star. So maybe the drinking and the smoking and the cynicism are no longer foreign parts he’s imported to protect himself, rather they have become integral parts to his system. Or maybe they’ve always been there, hidden beneath the surface, waiting to make an appearance. The changes his father knew were coming. Remove one and he’s no longer Javier. Which is just so fucking unfair because the most critical parts of himself are the ones that are hurting you. 

“Drunk,” you repeat, the word passing your lips as if it were something disgusting. “How many times have you been drunk this week, Javi?” 

Christ. He wonders if he can even get past tipsy anymore; the warmth that radiates in his chest and on his cheeks no longer enough, and that maybe now, facing you, he’s unable to admit that it wasn’t the alcohol that made him lash out at all. It was just him. His mind. His body. A split second decision, yeah, but a decision made by him and him alone nonetheless. 

The guy had said something. He can’t remember exactly what, but it had pushed a button. Angered a darkened corner of his half-focused mind, igniting like a gas stove suddenly coming to life. Javier was turning on his barstool, staring at the man, daring him to say something else and then he was getting up; the chair clattering to the floor, the bartender shouting. Somehow they got outside; the air just as sharp and piercing as it was on the night in his dad’s truck. He threw the first punch, clipped the stranger’s jaw, then finished the motion by colliding with the brickwork. 

What happened after that is fuzzy - blipping in his mind like stills from a movie. The water he was forced to drink. His hands roughly placing a few crumpled bills on to the counter (somehow back inside). The bartender suggesting a cab and watching himself decline, outside his own body, saying that he’ll walk. 

He still smells of the beer he had spilled on himself in the process and faintly of sweat, hyper-aware of his proximity to you and that you can probably smell it too. He’s never seen you so disappointed, so hurt, even before when things were worse. 

Guilt consumes Javier so quickly and so thoroughly he has to look away to gain some relief from the pressure, afraid the feeling would surmount and swell, a burning hot geyser, then swallow him whole and boil him _alive_. He can’t bring himself to answer knowing you really weren’t asking because you wanted to know, and refusing to add anymore to the despair in your face. 

“I just-” you set his hand down and it floats in the air for a few seconds before he places it in his lap, starting to pick up the wrappers littered amongst your coffee table so harshly that they crunch, wrinkling in your fist. “Why did you even come here? You fucking-you _promised_ you wouldn’t do this to me again and you did.” 

Javier knows what he said, knew in that moment too that making such a promise would be foolish. Impossible to keep but also equally impossible to take back. How could he deny you such an assurance when you were crying over him with shaking hands covered in his blood? He couldn’t have possibly done that to you and not now either, but the situation isn’t the same as it was all those months ago. 

Seems like he isn’t the only thing changing. 

You’re furious, sure of your anger yet not erupting; simmering like water bubbling over and hitting a hot stove. 

You’re a lifetime or a dream away; suddenly aware that you could look around your living room and know that the walls were still white. You’d know that a stack of books, untouched for as long as you’ve let them sit there, still lay precariously atop one another at the ledge of your kitchen table. That the black and white photograph of you and your friends, taken years ago when you were all younger and much happier, is crooked and will remain crooked no matter how many times you fix it or adjust the string. And you know, just like you know all these other things, that Javier stares at you now, seeking to find some hidden structure beneath your ire. Yet you could see nothing. 

Who was this man that slipped so easily into your bed every weekend? Whose voice is recorded in your answering machine. The man whose presence lingers long after he’s left. 

Filled with a familiar plummeting, you could be half-dead and not know it. 

“Won’t happen again,” his voice is like gravel and you hate the way you’re filled with sudden sympathy for him, for the blue that rings his eyes, the stress that pinches his brow. You desperately want to stay mad yet he makes it hard. Your love for him makes it hard. 

“I need more than your reassurances, Javi.” You let the crumbled paper drop from your hand back onto the table, no longer filled with the need to get away from him; to create some distance between your bodies. 

“There isn’t gonna be a next time.” 

Javier feels like he’s lying. He could be, given his history, but he has faith in his words and hopes that you do too despite how little support there is for it. He scratches his eyebrow, rubs his hand over his mouth, the rubs his shoulder. _He’s so fucking tired_ and your heart yearns to comfort him. You reach out instinctively, push some of his hair out of his forehead, your hands sweet and gently and perfect; untainted by drunken fury, by brick walls. 

He leans into your touch without thinking. 

That’s all it takes. 

You want, abruptly, so many things. 

The warmth of your skin underneath his aching, trembling fingers is the first thing he really registers all night. The way you sigh into the shell of his ear, crawling into his lap. It’s like he’s seeing you for the first time; the vulnerability and openness. Heat suffuses its way into his cheeks, travels down his neck and into his chest. His heart beats steadily, a rhythm so harsh and so alive he sucks in a breath, the weight of his own presence startling. 

How easy it would be for him, he realizes, to put aside all of this for the sound of your soft footsteps. For the inhales and exhales of your gentle breathing in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep, kept awake by some invisible force that refuses to relent it’s hold. 

How unattainable. 

You’re whining, bringing him back once more from his haze. This must hurt a little bit, it has to. The air is charged with a sort of destructive potential energy, waiting for just the right movement. His fingers, some half-hidden by gauze, dig into your thighs where he’s holding them open, guiding you to roll your cunt against the fly of his jeans. He can feel the wetness beneath the bandage, his blood a slow trickle yet still flowing, and soon it won’t even matter how despite your righteous displeasure with him you so tenderly wrapped his wounds. 

But that’s how it always goes, right? 

You sleep shorts slide off easily, silky blue cascading over your legs as cool as water. Flimsy little thing that makes staying in your apartment more bearable, especially when the temperature begins to rise as morning approaches. You’d keep your window open for that same reason, yet you do not. An intrusion is unlikely, although it is not impossible. Javier, his strong fingers securing the latch, the very same that are on you now, telling you that you should keep them closed. 

Sort of funny. Sort of ironic. Advice on how to take care of yourself, how to keep yourself safe, is coming from him. 

You swallow then, your throat feeling strangely tight. It occurs to you that you’ve never made that connection before; the hypocrisy, until tonight. But those are thoughts for a later you. For a you that has the mental fortitudes to tackle what has happened tonight. For a you that doesn’t long to feel Javier beneath you, sturdy and alive, his pulse just under your fingers. 

Javier fights an apology. It’ll fragment this moment, make you break away from him entirely. An apology isn’t what you need. 

He licks his lips, drags your pussy down onto his lap. Your hands, saccharine little things, yet clipped like flightless birds, slide up his chest and rest lightly on his shoulders, spreading along the base of his neck. The intimacy of it is quiet, intense and small. The glass surrounds you again but this time he’s also caught between the panes; breathtakingly personal compared to just minutes ago. 

He sighs, the sound shallow and low - like he’s been waiting to let it go, has waited too long and now it’s caught between his ribs. Your shirt is the next thing to go. One of his, he registers for the first time tonight, and his heart lurches but it is forgotten, dropped to the floor. Dropped like so many other things. 

“I fucked up,” he speaks, his words zipping through the air like swift headlights, painful and sad. 

Don’t say it, you think. Don’t fucking say it. 

He doesn’t. And expectation lingers in the air. One second. Then three and four. Stretching. Expanding. Filling the unseeable box that surrounds you. Impenetrable. 

“I love you.” 

Solid. Stable. The most honest thing he’s said all night but the look on his face is shattering. Alarmed, just as you are, by his own confession. It melts, though, into a tangible relief. There for only for a moment but _there_ all the same. Javier sits forward, kisses you and it feels inevitable. Like every moment of torturous heartache was meant to lead up to this moment and you know that it fucking wasn’t - that the circumstances surrounding this final fucking admission could have been so different. Could have been placid, muted and serene instead of being bathed in blood. 

Your lungs collapse, waves of mourning for what could have been crashing over you. For the second time since he arrived your eyes fill with tears but this time you don’t try to stop them. You let them fall, taste their saltiness as you continue to kiss him - distressed and enraged and so fucking _sad._

Your entire body shakes with the pressure of being alive as you reach between your bodies and undo the fly of his jeans. It opens easily and you reach into his pants, finding yourself moaning helplessly at the feel of his cock in your hand. 

The urge to make him feel - to make him beg and weep and scream just the same as you do inside your head almost every day - is ravenous and overcoming. You want to read the same pain in his face that is reflected back at you in the mirror; the same kind of frenzied love etched into every feature, every expression and as you blink, rubbing your thumb along the head of his erection, you catch glimpses of it. Catch the way his jaw clicks, the way his eyes squeeze shut. Then _feel_ the way his hands tighten their grip despite the pain that must shoot through one of them, searing and as hot as coals. 

_This is what he gets…for making me love him_ , your mind filters. _This is what he gets._

You twist your wrist, glide your palm up and down. Completely in control. Watching. Waiting. His moans are lodged in his throat, the tanned skin of it exposed to you as he tilts his head back. You surge forward, kiss it, the skin prickling. You whisper something sweet and useless against his neck that could be anything but it’s enough to make him buck into your hand, his groan wrecked. 

Javier must comprehend what you’re looking for because he’s flipping you over and laying you down against the leather sofa, the cushions hot from where you both had been sitting. You don’t bother to fight it, bracing yourself on his biceps, knowing without thinking that he’s going to take care of you. “tan bueno para mí…” he whispers, nudging his leg between your thighs, “no te merezco.” 

His words are like catching broken sentences between radio static. Blimping, bumping against the surface of your mind with vague familiarity. Their entire context unknown. The muscles he’s got pressed against your cunt flex, sending shockwaves of startling pleasure through your lower abdomen. You need to stop contradicting yourself, to put your foot down. It’s why he thinks he can get away with this but you like when he’s above you as well, an all encompassing presence. Sharp and defined lines above you. No longer an abstract image in your head of him hunched over his desk, or of him in the field chasing sicarios; getting caught in shootouts, gun pointed in the air and sweat staining his shirt. 

Javier pushes two fingers inside you, curls them and fucks you open. Your own digits fly to his hair and he makes a sound almost like a groan - involuntary, dragged from deep within his chest. He hauls you closer, lifts you so that for a few brief seconds your shoulders no longer connect with the couch and then you’re pressed against it again, trapped even further by his body. 

When you come you come ** _hard_** ; unexpectedly, your breath catching and dissolving into nothing. White dances in the space in front of you. Toes curling, unable to articulate. He doesn’t stop moving, only taking away his hand to replace it with his cock. “Fuck,” he mutters, never taking his eyes off you. “Let me - please -” 

Everything sounds so far away, so distant. Open air. Shattered glass. 

You nod because it’s the only thing you trust yourself to do, flushed and feeling like every single one of your cells is fizzing. You spread your legs, drape your calf along the back of the sofa, inviting him to take what he needs. 

He pushes in slowly - inch by inch - your muscles tensing and spasming; overstimulated and sensitive. Your focus dances from one snapshot to the next, a black vastness filling the space in between. And then he’s pulling back out, his erection dragging against your walls. In his face you find an affection you can’t (or refuse, perhaps) to put a name to, afraid that once you do it’ll change the constitution of it entirely. His revelation has given him freedom. Temporary. Never permanent, but here now. He can look at you the way he’s always wanted to, the way he has when you’re not looking. When you’re sleeping next to him and the streetlamps are too bright, the sound of distant cars too loud. 

Javier pulls you in for a kiss, rough and a little tragic, brushing against something wonderful inside you. The angle is good and the friction is just right and you feel like you could get lost in it - in its cadence. The fabric wrapped around his hand catches on your knee and your attention darts to it; to the stain that bears it and feels unreal; like he hadn’t come to your apartment just an hour ago with it still fresh. 

What was your life before he said those words? 

“Jesus,” he gasps, your name following. His breath fans against your face, his lips brushing against your own as he speaks. Then he’s shuddering, stilling, clenching your knee, something wet dripping down it. 

And then it’s over. 

Neither of you know what to do next. You hadn’t said it back and he doesn’t know if he should say it again, repeat those words that you have longed to hear, afraid they’d feel incongruous now amongst the haze of both your orgasms, amongst the piercing of your fight. 

Javi leans back, notices the red that drips from his fingers. You sit up, shuffle backwards then grab more fabric from the first aid kit and press it firmly against his palm. Still, no words are spoken. The atmosphere won’t allow it. 

“Did you mean it?” you talk anyway, thumbs gliding over his knuckles. “What you said…did you mean it?” 

He blinks. You stare at his hand. He stares at your face. “Of course I meant it…” the tiredness is back, however no longer laced with rigidity. 

You nod. You suppose that’s all you can ask from him. For him to mean it. 

“Okay,” you whisper, feeling his heartbeat, rapid yet unhitched. 

“Okay.”


	7. The Fever

Maybe standing so close to the door after you open it is a bad idea. 

Not just because you could easily be grabbed if that’s the objective of whoever is on the other side, and not because you might get hit with it as it comes swinging towards you. 

But rather:

You only think this because he’s on you like a goddamn madman the second it’s even slightly ajar. You’ve barely got the lock undone when he’s using his broad shoulders to push himself the rest of the way through and into your apartment. Normally it wouldn’t bother you; you’ve got just as much an appetite as he does, so when he kisses you, hot and heavy and hungry you almost give in. 

Almost. 

“Javi-“ his name is swallowed, bounced back at you with the slide of his tongue along your bottom lip. He’s needy tonight, greedy with his groping, grabbing your hips and ass by the handfuls. Something must have happened tonight. Something you two don’t talk about. You’ll hear about it on the news eventually, but you wish he’d opened up, give you a little more. Christ you’ve been more than intimate with each other. It should follow that your pillow talk becomes more interesting than the weather and Murphy’s fucking marriage problems. You’re starting to care for Javier more than you should, starting to yearn for more from him than just fucking. 

At least you think you are. It might be the fever. It’s got you drained, physically and emotionally. You’ve no longer got your safeguards up. There’s no barrier between your thoughts and your mouth. And just kissing him makes you want to cry; an uncomfortable lump already forming in your throat, coupled wretchedly with the soreness of it. Emotions you’d typically be able to mask easily are tumultuous; rolling over each other like violent waves, uncontrollable and unstoppable. Rising and crashing with your breathing. It’d be sort of embarrassing if you had more energy to really focus on your behavior. 

“Javier,” you try again, but it’s croaked more than anything, passing your lips weakly. You can’t tell if you’re dizzy off his affection or your exhaustion. Even sick, it feels good to be touched like this. His hands are cold, his mouth is soft. If he would only place his hands on your eyes, then you’d feel real relief. 

He gets close, though. Sweet, sinful fingers moving to cup your cheeks. You hum, pleased, but then he’s pulling back like he’s been burned; the fog of arousal in his gaze washing away with each blink. 

“Fuck. Are you sick?” 

You could cry. It’s only a question. And yeah, you most certainly are sick. But watching him recoil is making you panic. It isn’t so much what he’s asking, rather that he’s never moved away from you like that; never rejected you like that. To have him do it now, when you’re already not feeling well, has only added insult to injury, and it brings up a lot of fears you’ve kept otherwise shoved into the dark. Insecurities you find yourself foolish for having because fuck, you know what this is; he isn’t your boyfriend. He’s just some DEA agent with a terrible coping mechanism and a borderline drinking problem. Fucking you is just another form of stress relief. Believing he’d suddenly become more involved with your well-being isn’t rational. You’re sure the last thing he wants is to catch whatever you’ve got, too. 

So he’s being sensible. 

Still hurts, though. And the sting of it must show on your face because his look softens, then morphs into something akin to reluctancy. Catching Escobar doesn’t afford any sick days. It isn’t like there’s some universal remote that gives him the ability to hit “pause,” making sicarios and every other trafficker in Colombia take five. That isn’t how his job works, and he knows that what’ll happen if he stays is that he’ll feel like someone shoved some toilet paper in his head then tried to flush it out with acid, all while he continues to look for Escobar anyway. 

But you look so pitiful. And so fucking upset with him he can’t stand it. 

His cool, merciful hands are back on you, flipping between his palms and his knuckles as he places them against your cheeks, trying to figure out if you actually feel as hot as he thinks. When he called earlier, he hadn’t noticed any sort of hoarseness to your voice, no waver, no lull in your attention. Granted the conversation lasted about all of three seconds, and he was (probably still is) tipsy on the verge of drunk. Still, you hadn’t (or maybe he didn’t give you that chance to) protest before he hung up the phone. The last time he saw you you were feeling fine. He had no reason to believe you wouldn’t be now. 

“I was trying to tell you,” you start trying not to whine when his blessed hands drop to his hips, pointer fingers tapping uneasily against his leather belt. “But you didn’t really give me the chance.” 

Javier frowns, brings one of those hands that you already miss to his mouth and rubs it roughly. You don’t like when he does that, or at least you don’t when it’s directed at you. You aren’t some smart-mouth, belligerent Narco. He’s acting as if he’s about to make some negotiation he doesn’t want to be apart of; the struggle between staying and leaving evident on his face. 

“Have you seen a doctor?” 

“It’s just a fever, Javi. It was worse yesterday and I took some aspirin like, twenty minutes ago. I’ll be fine.” 

Your answer isn’t what he was looking for, but he knows he can’t make you do anything. Jesus, he knows that better than anyone. In his very brief and rare moments of emotional clarity, he’s entreating you to leave the country. Those conversations never last long. The United States may be and have a lot of things, but it doesn’t have him. At least not right now. It took you awhile to come to terms with that; mind filtering through every valid reason you should stay in Colombia without ever touching your relationship with the agent. You know people here. The weather is nice. Anything and everything that seemed valid enough compared to staying somewhere dangerous for a man. 

But what’s it got you? What has it made you? You’re standing in front of him, your mental capabilities for processing your feelings capped, feeling a little pathetic that you’re worried about him leaving when now he’s got no real reason to stay. 

It’s just sex. You’re his booty call and vice versa. Nowhere in that package does it state that either of you are obligated to take care of each other. You have no right to be upset. 

“You can leave. I don’t think this is good enough for you to catch a virus over.” Perhaps he needs you to give him an out; something more solid to hold on to so that he doesn’t feel entirely guilty for leaving when you aren’t feeling well: a reminder of your undocumented and unspoken contract. There’s nothing he can do for you anyway that you can’t already do for yourself. Seeing him just makes you feel nice, but you won’t make him sacrifice time he could be spending somewhere else, doing something more important; especially when he’d rather be doing those things, too. 

“You’re asking me to leave?” The hesitation that had wormed through his expression is gone. Of course he’d be quick enough to ask you that; to read in between the lines to what you’re actually saying. Your words aren’t a guilt trip by any means, but he knows better than to think that you’re saying them solely for his own sake. 

You look at him, still trying to find anything averse in how he looks at you. You can’t, or maybe your over-worked brain just doesn’t see it, but his expression is open now; still guarded in almost every aspect, but just as avowed as it’s ever been around you. 

“No. No, I-uh-I was just saying that you can. Don’t feel like you have to stay, is all,” you explain meekly, almost a little embarrassed. You haven’t done anything wrong and neither has he. There really isn’t anything to feel ashamed about. Maybe it’s your worry that he’ll look into these words as well and find their deeper meaning. Discover that you want him to stay and somehow ruin everything. You’re not sure you could handle that right now. 

“Do you want me to stay?” Fuck. Javier’s gaze is leveling in its intensity. You go to look away, to save yourself from the burn that’ll settle in your eyes if you maintain eye-contact, but he follows; bends a little so that you can’t escape him. 

“I-you don’t have to, Javi.” 

“That’s-fuck, that’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking you if you want me to stay. What you want. Not what you think I want.” 

There’s no tiptoeing around it now. You can answer him honestly or lie. Either way, the outcome might be the same: he’ll leave. Whether it’ll be permanently or not is what’s worrying. This isn’t what you two do. You want to kick yourself for not having the foresight to stop, or urge for more earlier. Now it’s gotten you bridled with unrequited love; the most heartbreaking, tormenting kind. Your feelings for him have easily usurped everything else. If he were to confirm what you’re scared you know already; it might destroy you. 

And maybe you’ll take that plane to America after all. 

“Please stay…” The waterworks come before you can help it; at first it’s just a stinging in your nose, and you think that maybe you can fight them, but before you can even so much as clench your jaw your eyes begin to water; hot and fresh tears distorting his handsome face. If you were able to see him properly, you’d have watched his momentary panic, and then as it morphed with a flash of confusion. He isn’t sure what’s happening right now, that much is still clear to you. 

“What’s going on? Why are you crying?” Javier speaks in a quieter tone, bringing his palm to your forehead while the other rests comfortingly on your arm. You’re still burning up and it makes him sigh in displeasure. He moves his hand so that it rests at the base of your neck, then gently tugs you forward so that you’re pressed into his chest, your head against his shoulder. 

“Hey, come on…don’t cry,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. Javier isn’t really good at this; most of the time he’s in very little situations that require him to be affectionate. He’s not a robot, but his job requires some sacrifices, so in some areas he’s stilted; shut off. Not completely, but enough to make him feel like he’s floundering with a grenade just at the sight of you crying. It’s something he needs to work on; hell before you, it was easier to tell the strangers he slept with his problems. Of course, never outright, but enough to give him clarity, to give him some kind of relief. 

But you never felt like a stranger. And you certainly aren’t one now, so. 

“…I didn’t mean to upset you,” he isn’t sure how he might have, but it’s the truth. Christ the very last thing he’d ever want to do is hurt you. Every since he met you, you’ve been creeping into his thoughts; slowly at first, planting roots into his brain until now all he can think about is you. When his mind is idle, he always catches himself wondering what you’re doing, and the pang of fear in his chest when his mind betrays him with images of you dead make him nearly throw up at his desk. The same sort of feeling settles itself in his stomach now. 

Javier cards his fingers through your hair, gently shushing you until your tears turn to sniffling. 

“You didn’t, Javi. I’m just-I don’t know what I am right now. I just want to feel better,” you explain in half-truths. You know damn well the reason for your tears doesn’t rest entirely on your weakened immune system. Some of the responsibility lies on Javier’s shoulders as well. However, you don’t have the energy for that conversation yet, and you don’t want to risk pushing him away just when he’s agreed not to leave. 

“Go lay down,” he begins, pulling away just enough to look down at you again, gesturing towards the bed with his chin, “I’ll make you some real food; not that canned shit and saltines I know you’ve been eating.” Javier isn’t much of a cook; nights alone typically consist of take-out, or he smokes and downs a few beers to wane off the hunger, but he knows at least how to make some toast. Hopefully the aspirin has kicked in by now, and you’ll be able to keep it down. Javier can handle a lot of things. Throw up might not be one of them. 

You’re reluctant to agree, though. The last thing you want to do is eat, even if it will be something easy on your stomach. You only want to be held by Javier and drift off into blissful unconsciousness, hoping by morning you’ll feel a little better. 

“I’m not hungry. I want to lay down with you.” 

The reluctance in his face is back. This time it doesn’t worry you. It’s sort of funny when Javier ‘mother-hens,’ and you can tell your disagreement has ruffled a few feathers. He wants to help you, but doesn’t want to go against your wishes. His struggle to decide is painted on his face, and you think for a second that maybe he’s gonna say no, but then he’s shrugging off his jacket and kicking off his shoes. 

“You’ll need to eat something eventually.” 

“I know, Javier…thank you,” you smile, letting him lead you to your bed. 

“Don’t mention it,” he murmurs, laying amongst your many pillows, letting you get comfortably nestled into his side. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up,” Javier continues, stroking your hair. That isn’t really something he can promise, but you like that he’s said it anyway: the security and trust it brings.

So you hum, closing your eyes, half-dead to the world already, content in knowing that at least for right now, you’ve got him.


	8. The Cigarette

“Do you really have to do that?” 

Your voice is soft, quiet - holds no real aggression despite the accusation in your words - floats through and breaks the humid air like invisible music notes - so fucking pretty and sweet he could listen to you talk all day if you’d let him. 

Let the half-caved-in remains of his heart be dedicated to you. 

But that’s not how this works this-this arrangement, this agreement - _whatever the fuck it is when two people who meet in a bar continue to fuck like they hadn’t been complete strangers, like they aren’t still as foreign to each other as an asteroid is to the earth, just as destructive and devastating, too_ \- crashing, crushing, blowing away pieces of would be flesh like dirt and gravel and roots - because that can’t be how the two of you operate. There’s no foreseeable happy ending - no world in which both of you get what you want - so why even entertain it? 

You can’t pour from a cup that’s always been empty, anyway.

He cares enough about you not to put you through that kind of heartache - the kind that comes from loving someone so much that they become the very air you breathe; the substantial, relentless kind that makes everything feel like it’s sharpened, too intense; the kind that compelled him to buy you a new lamp after he broke the last one - some flimsy looking thing that shattered immediately when it hit the ground - old, bought at a garage sale for fifty cents right before you moved because you liked the way it looked despite how it didn’t match any of your other things - even though he knows that dragging it out like this, being _selfish_ , will only make it worse for you more in the long run.

Javier glances at you from over his shoulder because he can’t help himself. Sees you laying on your side, draped in your new bed-sheets, looking up at him like he turns the goddamn sun and moon and it breaks his heart a little - makes him yearn for what he denies himself - something he could so easily have if he weren’t such an asshole. If he weren’t so bad for you. If he weren’t the way he is - if he acted differently, had a different job, a different history and a different fucking life. If he weren’t _him_. Because you deserve better - you deserve more than he could ever give you. 

He’s lied too much and cheated too much and drowned whatever good qualities he had remaining in dubious amounts of alcohol, so he’s long since surpassed his ability to make excuses for himself - his string of bad decisions no longer founded in something that could be - if he squeezed hard enough or if he squinted - explained. There’s no redemption, not in his eyes - and when he goes home and gets his hero’s welcome it will be a lie. What had he done that helped any of them, truly? 

So yeah - you deserve more than that.

Like someone who remembers your birthday. Someone who buys you more than a few overpriced drinks and fucks you in a seedy bathroom of some bar a few blocks from your apartment. Someone who doesn’t have to be convinced to stay when you aren’t feeling well. Someone who isn’t putting you in danger just by being with them even though he knows that Steve and Connie make it work - somehow, by some miracle, they haven’t fallen apart yet but sometimes he feels like it must be coming - eventually, because if he’s learned anything in this life it’s that if things have the opportunity to go to shit, they will. 

You deserve an air conditioner that works. 

He turns back around and finds his pack of cigarettes before he can get too sentimental - tossed onto your nightstand, crooked and haphazard, reflecting the yellow cast of the street lights outside as it pours through your curtains. 

You can hear the way his fingers tap against the thin paper of the package as he knocks at the top. A little hollow sounding. Almost empty. 

You’ve wondered before how many he goes through in a day - have tried to keep track but when you’re around him you aren’t really focused on his bad habits until things get quiet - get weird and a little complicated and confusing - _so fucking confusing_ \- and it always happens after, when you aren’t occupied by the filthy way he’s kissing your neck - nipping, biting, tugging - or the way his fingers press achingly against your cunt as he’s rocking into you - somehow more in-tune with your body than you are. 

And maybe that’s the problem. 

You aren’t listening. 

You ignore the way your bones ache when you look at him - cracking and fracturing like strained ice. The way your lungs collapse. The way your grief crawls like an animal alive beneath your skin - starting at your stomach, crawling and scratching and clawing its way up your throat until you’re bursting with it - coming out with a heavy sob when you’re alone in your bathroom, staring at yourself in the mirror, wondering _what the fuck_ you’re doing here as you scrub your hands and face over and over again in the sink until the water is too hot or too cold or until your face feels as if its been peeled because no matter how much soap you use you can never clean yourself of him.

Can never wipe away the ghost of his lips - a little chapped, scratchy because of his fucking mustache, filled with every word he doesn’t allow himself to say.

The feel of his hands - heavy objects, solid and grasping, groping and tender - always touching you so carefully despite the way they leave burns - would be indentations of his fingerprints. And every time you look you expect to see skin that’s raw and red, blisters and welts, as if he’d drawn bloodless incisions on every inch of you. Yet you see nothing. A bruise maybe, pooled deep beneath the dermis like ink in hues of purple and blue - but nothing else. No _brand._ No _scars_. Nothing. 

It’s only ever the pressure that follows you. 

And you continue to neglect the way you speak without speaking. Leaning against the sink and closing your eyes, resting your forehead against the medicine cabinet. 

He places the filter between his lips, digs into the pocket of his jeans for his lighter. A flash of metal between his fingers. 

“Do what?” He questions, muffled a little, making the cigarette bounce in a way that would usually make you laugh but nothing seems funny right now - in an ironic, bitter way, perhaps, because it’s sort of funny how you keep putting yourself through this, never learning your lesson. 

The flame flashes against his face like a bolt of orange and red lightning - startling in the way it illuminates his handsome features, pressed in tired concentration as he lights his cigarette. You’re not sure when it started being painful to look at him. When the contours of his face, the bridge of his nose, the pout of his lips - sharp and masculine and breathtaking - began to make you wince. You think that it might be because when you look at him, he’s usually looking back at you, and as simple as that vulnerability may seem it is catastrophic in its consequences. He sees through you so easily, with like - no effort at all and you’re afraid that one day he’s going to catch you looking and you’re going to grimace, flinch a little because guys who drink alone in random bars shouldn’t be able to do that. They shouldn’t be able to come to your apartment half dead and bleeding all over your floor - staining your furniture, making your hands shake with so much force and for so long that they almost have you convinced you’ll have a tremor forever. 

That _fear_ forever. The kind that’s far too genuine and submerged to be congruent with a one night stand.

They shouldn’t be able to do that. _He_ shouldn’t be able to do that. And yet. 

A brief pause like maybe you had lost your nerve or changed your mind - deciding suddenly it wasn’t even worth talking anymore because what good has it done you in the past. It wouldn’t be the first time and you don’t think it’ll be the last in which things get left unsaid - swallowed by swollen tongues and clenched teeth and fearful mouths. Always so close to saying something.

A hitch in your breath and it’s like he can hear the way your molars gnash against one another. You do that when you’re stressed, he’s noticed - sometimes in your sleep, too. 

“Get dressed so fast.” 

Javier leans forward - exhales and a puff of grey smoke leaves through his nose, burns a little as he rests his elbows on his knees and rubs his face with his free hand, the other holding his cigarette, dangling precariously between his knuckles. 

He might as well burn you with it, you think. 

It would hurt a lot less. 

Maybe you’re being unfair. Maybe he doesn’t do it all the time - hasn’t done it all the time because he has stayed - has laid in bed with you or on that stupid, uncomfortable fucking couch; breathing, shuddering, stroking your hair - talking to you with a mouth that feels like its filled with sand-paper, stumbling over handfuls of syllables like he’s forgotten what it was like to speak to someone else without an edge in his voice - without the anger. 

But you can’t shake the feeling that maybe he stays because he feels compelled to - some guilty conscious thing - where he feels like if he leaves after an argument or sex (both, most of the time which is like - entirely fucked and not at all healthy) he’ll only make himself look like an even bigger asshole, but it happens often enough that it’s beginning to hurt your feelings. 

And at the center of all this effusion is what - your love for him? 

Love that has been confessed - spoken in hoarse voices, exhausted voices, voices that have screamed and shouted and strained - criticized and nitpicked and whispered. Voices that speak of the future with hesitance, restraint. 

A voice, his voice - a soft baritone you’re becoming alarmingly addicted to, who had murmured to you that he loved you too - dizzy and in pain. That was then reluctant within almost the same breath to stay with you when he realized he had arrived at your door only to be met with snot and tears and something so _pitiful_ that you’re embarrassed whenever you think about it now. 

A voice that had kept that secret. 

A voice that answers now. 

“I can’t stay.” 

There are decisions that some people just can’t come back from and he thinks that he’s one of those people and that you’re one of those decisions. You’re too good for him. Undamaged and bright eyed and he can see the way that he’s changing that - stripping you of your color and clarity like a magnet against a television screen - not so dangerous at first if taken away quickly, but if left to linger damaging the t.v. beyond repair. 

You aren’t some inanimate object, though, he knows this. Christ - he knows this better than anyone, so it isn’t like he’s just destroying you for the hell of it. You’re letting him. Every time he breaks the threshold of your apartment, every time you answer your phone or open your door, the cycle repeats itself. The kind of pattern that should send vicious, desperate alarm bells ringing through your head, yet they only go off when he’s gone. When he’s no longer with you - around you, taking up your space until all it is is filled with _him_. It doesn’t help that they’re easy to ignore - to push back into deafening silence. 

For as awful as this is - as draining, as heartbreaking and undignified as it is it’s so good too. 

The kind of good that makes you certain he’s ruined anyone else. No one could even begin to compete. He’s it for you. 

He’s it and it’s unfair. It’s cruel. Makes you feel off-balance, _helpless_ , not sure of anything other than that you love him. A lot. Love that makes every tense silence feel as if it is solidifying like wet concrete, makes heat pool somewhere low in your stomach - searing, unavoidable - makes it feel like you’ve got knives lining your windpipe every time you yell at him. A kind of love that isn’t easy. A kind of love that seeps, warm and liquid as molasses, in which you can bury your loneliness, let it remain suspended and frozen. 

A love that had to be fought for - ripped in outbursts of violent anger that burns white hot somewhere just above your sternum or pulled gently from his hands - falling easily when he’s trying to convince you to eat some toast when all you want to do is lay with him for a little while. 

“Why not?” 

Javier swallows back a lump of something unidentifiable in his throat, takes another drag of his cigarette, and when he speaks again his voice is far rougher than he intended it to be. 

“You know why.” 

_**God.** You really **don’t.**_

You stifle your tears out of habit - what good are they anyway when every time they fell nothing changed? Not that you ever like allowing yourself to cry in front of him because that would mean shifting the dynamic - asking more from him than he could possibly give and potentially risking the danger of pushing him away. 

You’d like to say that you’ve learned your lesson but all you can focus on right now is how different these fucking bed-sheets feel - too soft, too fluffy, bought on impulse because he was spending more time at your apartment and you wanted more to offer him than a few hand-me-down quilts and comforters you’d taken from your parents house before you left even though he said that he kind of liked the tattered mess of a blanket you slept with most nights. It was authentic - reminded him of home - and you wish that you didn’t shove it deep in your cluttered linen closet, that you could go get it and cry without worrying the way it’d be hurting him. 

Most of all, though, you wish that you would have kept your mouth shut because maybe you’d be happy. Well - not happy, but at least asleep. 

“No, I don’t. Please explain it to me, Javi. Because I’m so tired of this fucking back and forth. _I am so tired of it. Please.”_

It chafes, this confusion of yours - tears at something inside of you, something small and anxious and scared. You just want answers but he never seems to be able to give you one, not anything direct, anyhow. 

“What do you want me to say?” 

You blink at him in disbelief, move to sit up on your knees, ignoring the way the sheets fall - how cold you suddenly are, your fingers twitching at your sides, the agony inside you swelling - rising as terrifyingly powerful as a tidal wave, forcing you to clutch at your chest - fingernails digging into the meat just beneath your collar bones - as if you’re holding yourself together, keeping yourself from physically falling apart as you desperately try to get him to understand that this isn’t just about him and his desire to be a martyr. 

“Something. _Anything_ ,” you plead with him - the callow soreness of the emotion in your inflection so choked and strangled that it’s like he had reached into your throat and pulled it out himself - holding it broken in his fist. 

There’s a tension headache beginning to throb somewhere behind his eyes that not even the nicotine is able to get rid of - his smoke half forgotten as it continues to burn, leaving a little pile of ash next to his feet until he finally snuffs it out and he means to rub at them - he really does, but as he’s turning, lifting his hand, his fingers brush your leg in the process and he’s- 

He really isn’t sure what he’s _doing_ but he’s doing it anyway - his hand settling heavier, callused fingertips to rough palm, molding against your thigh. 

“Javier…” you murmur like you’re not quite sure if his name fits in your mouth - timid, annunciations caught on the rounding of your teeth.

None of this is new - to you or to him - this wanting, this need - iron hot and severe, but there’s something daunting about the finality of it - the feeling that this must be it. There’s no moving on. No getting past this. 

You know when that happens? When something rocks your world? And nothing is ever the same after? 

“Please don’t go,” you beg - _whine_ \- into the silence that has spread between you two like the drop off of a cliff’s edge, sharp and plummeting and endless - a delicate hand rising to cup his cheek, thumb brushing against the dark stubble he’s been meaning to shave, touching him with so much caution - like you’re afraid if you move too fast or too hard it’ll shake him into coming to his senses, into leaving.

“I won’t. I’m not.” 

He leans above you - spreads his fingers, glides them up, over - grabs your hip as he nudges his body between your legs. The slope of your stomach is smooth and soft, rising and falling with the weight of your breathing - a little rapid now, bewildered and a little dazed - your breast expanding with greed and need and wonder. What you want him to say is no longer important. All that matters is what he’s doing - what he _will do._

And when you sigh he swallows it, tucks it away some place deep within him where he shoves everything else he doesn’t let himself think about. 

“Javi…” you repeat and this time he leans into it and it no longer feels like he’s forcing two parallel worlds to collide. It’s easy for him to just keep taking - you just give and give and give until there isn’t anything else for you to offer and even then he’ll take that too - because he’s greedy and he’s selfish and he’s guilty. So fucking guilty as he slides his hand around the back of your thigh, guides it so that the warmth of it is pressed against his side, then trails his fingers down to your calf - dances them along the muscle like he’s waiting for you to pull back and when you don’t he guides that too, wrapping it around his waist. 

“I know, baby.” Javier rumbles, pressing his mouth to the center of your rib cage. He knows and he hates himself for it because most of the time he does nothing about it - he just lets himself believe that this is the same as it’s always been with him - that you’re the same as every other girl he’s been with - and that eventually this will end the same as it always does. Never-mind that he’s not seeing anyone else. Never-mind that when the strain of his job gets too much he finds himself falling back into you, or falling into the thought of you while he drinks because he doesn’t like it when you see him all dark and twisted. 

Never-mind all that. 

“No, you don’t…you don’t know.” you fight back, barely audible above your gasp as he kisses your sternum, then the curve of your breast. Shit maybe he doesn’t after all. Maybe he can’t ever understand because he’s the one who does all the leaving. Not you. Never you. 

A third time and he’s closing his lips and tongue around the hard peak of your nipple, smoothing his palm down your ribs - down the slopes of your body - _down, down, down_ until he’s brushing at the crux of your legs - your muscles trembling and tightening and taut - waiting, just on the precipice of something as you dig your heels into his lower back. _The least you can do is make me cum, he remembers you saying_ - _infuriated with him, exhausted with the expense of your anger_. The least he can do is a lot of things. 

The least he could do is let you go and save you both the trouble. 

He won’t, though - won’t because he can’t. He can’t bring himself to do it. He had already said that he loved you - had already made you trust him and love him back and he bought you a lamp and tried to get a hold of your fucking piece of shit landlord to get your air conditioner fixed - so although he leaves, he can’t ever will himself to be gone forever. 

“Explain it to me…tell me. I want to know.” He releases your breast, moves on to the other as he reaches to touch you - doesn’t miss the way you squirm upwards as the rough pad of his thumb strokes sticky and wet across your clit. 

You flush with frustrated embarrassment - annoyed at yourself for needing him so much, for that need being so apparent you can practically imagine his hand, wet and shiny with your slick and maybe some of his own cum that had yet to dry between your legs. You don’t want to tell him, feel like you shouldn’t have to tell him anything - but the words come tumbling past your lips anyway. 

“I-I hate it that I have to argue with you…that it’s only when I’m crying or making you cum that you feel the need to stay with me.” 

He keeps going - doesn’t stop - and it feels like he’s not listening only until the pressure against your clit intensifies- becomes sharp and fierce - circling over and over and over again, so acute that your hips twitch - drawing noises from you between your words, something from deep within your chest, soft and broken. 

Your chest feels tight, constricted, suffocating under the weight of his request. You’ve changed your mind. You don’t want to do this right now - not when he’s above you, heavy and consuming and perfect - eclipsing - good enough at this that when he makes you cum again you won’t be mad at him for getting up this time. 

Javier grabs the knee of the leg that isn’t draped over his hip and forces it down as far as it will go towards the bed, grazes his fingers along the inside of it as he spreads you open to the heady press of his gaze. “Keep going.” 

God you want to protest. Say that you can’t. But if you’re ever going to get anywhere with Javi it needs to come out somehow, at some point. Why not now when the pain of them is subdued by the coil of arousal burning low in your stomach? 

“I hate that you can just show up at my door, that you can call and know that I’ll answer. I hate-I hate that you showed up bleeding to death after getting _shot_ , expecting me to fix it. I hate that you broke my lamp and made me self-conscious about my fucking blankets.” 

Talking is getting harder now, consonants and vowels flying from past your lips rushed and impatient. Every time you draw in a breath it feels like you’re fighting against some leaded anchor - and when you finally manage to get some fucking oxygen into your lungs it feels like it’s only contributing to the fury in which your skin burns - roaring and crackling. Everything he’s doing goes against every word you’re saying, conflicting and colliding, stoking the fire, making your body crawl in a feverish warmth. 

“I hate that no matter where I go or what I’m doing I’m constantly thinking about you. I hate wondering if you’re safe, if I’m ever going to meet your friends. But most of all I hate the way that you made me love you. That somehow I love you ever more now. I hate _that_. I hate that _so much.”_

Javier stops. Leans back and looks down at you and you’re trying to figure out what he’s looking at - why he’s reaching for your face, gently, tentatively, before you can even try to fight back - when you feel them, hot and surprising, rolling down your cheeks in big, calamitous droplets. 

You inhale, suddenly and unsteady heaving, your lungs spasming - hiccups wracking your chest with enough force that he shushes you in alarm, pets your hair in a half-frightened, startled effort to comfort you. You make to wipe away at your tears, rubbing at them the way a child would, the back of your hands instantly damp. “Why do you always make me cry?” 

Jesus, he doesn’t know but he’s filled with a desperation to make it stop. “I-I- _christ_ , I don’t know. I’m sorry, honey.” 

Sorry doesn’t exactly cut it but at least right now he can show you how sorry he really is - kneel at the altar between your legs and seek out his forgiveness. A half-hearted thought that doesn’t fool his conscious - doesn’t make him believe that once this is over everything will be okay, but it’s a start. It’s a beginning. 

He pulls himself away, eyes scanning down the length of your body; so perfect, still so open and vulnerable to him, looks to you again - watches as you blink with eyelashes stuck together by sweat and tears, then presses his mouth to the bone of your ankle. You swallow, tremble a little and gaze back at him through hazy vision - bottom lip still curled, hands now fisted into the duvet. 

Javier kisses the side of your calf, drags his lips against the crook of your knee, the tight stretch of tendon and muscle that protects your pulse at the contour of your thigh - does the same on the other side before creeping back up - methodically and painstakingly deliberate. You whisper something senseless, maybe something you hate, but it doesn’t matter because your hands are inching up his arms, across the broad expanse of his shoulders, stroking through his hair and he’s so hard that it _hurts._

His cock strains against the seam and zipper of his jeans and he thinks that maybe this is what he gets for putting his pants back on - _for getting dressed so fast._ There’s no relief and his fingers form pressure points that bloom in your hip around his touch like he’s trying to relieve himself of the tension. Hard enough to make you lift your hips in protest - discontented. 

Javier lets go just enough to let you spread your thighs wide, his breath fanning torrid against your cunt, fighting the urge to taste you. One hand returns - sliding down - palm flat and fingers stroking the heat of your entrance. He can feel the way you clench and tighten and flutter around nothing - the muscles there aching, dripping with your slippery-slick heat. 

Then he’s pushing his fingers into you, warm and wet - squeezing around his pointer and middle fingers - your belly jolting when his thumb presses back against the swollen hot nub of your clit, pushing against him in small, slightly paralyzed motions as you keen - your hold on his hair tightening. He sinks in another finger, curls them all, and you tense around the stretch of it, closing your eyes as you arch your back, so close to where you need to be that you can almost taste it - breathing it in with every breath, light and fast. 

“Javi, please. I-” 

He doesn’t need you to explain this to him - understands inherently what you’re asking for - because in you is his own desire reflected back at him; in the thumping, stumbling tremble of your blood, in the way your hands release and contract against his scalp - blunt nails tugging, digging - and so he’ll give it to you. Anything you want. Anything - realizing now that he’d rather this end up going to shit than having never been with you at all. 

“Yeah,” he whispers, nose to the crook of your hip, breathing harshly. “Yeah, I know.” 

Javier lifts his head, settles himself a little lower, and the noise you make when he presses his mouth around your cunt is akin to a wail - fractured, catching and breaking - and he answers with his own groan - low and from deep within his throat, a wordless vibration that sends you into tremors - curling in on yourself as he hitches your thighs impossibly open with the width of his shoulders and pulls you closer - a deep, semisweet sting settling within your muscles. 

His fingers are still inside you, curling _up,_ dragging against the walls of your cunt as he draws his tongue up in one flat, broad stroke - stopping and sucking you clit, following with a gentle nip of his teeth. 

You ease into a liquid quiver - the burning-bright pressure of your arousal suddenly too much to bear - toes curling, shoulder blades folding against one another as you rock off the bed and against his face - but his grip on you is too tight - keeps you cemented to ministrations - and he doesn’t quit, either - works you through every rolling wave, every filthy noise you make until you collapse - falling back against the mattress whimpering, everything so fucking hot but especially your cheeks - which burn so badly that you finally release him and bring your hands to your face in an effort to cool them off. 

And when it’s over, when everything feels muddy and slowed down - when the shuddering has slowed but the trembling is still raw and sporadic - he sits up. 

Touches your face, brushes his thumb against the cupid’s bow of your top lip, wipes away a residual tear that had yet to dry and kisses your forehead, half-closing his eyes, aware of the feel of your fingers as they trail up and down his tricep, then the taut, bunched-up muscles of his sides. 

“You still hate me?” 

You curl your hand around the back of his neck, each movement feeling as fuzzy as fragments of a dusty film reel. You pull him down in the same moment that you speak, tilting your head up, carding your fingers through his hair - gentle now, careful. 

“I never said I hated you.” 

Your lips are soft and the kiss is unhurried - you can taste yourself, the salt of your tears, and the chap-stick you put on before bed. A weird combination but you don’t mind because among them is _him_ \- pointed and salient - and when you exhale he slips his tongue into your mouth, kisses you filthy and sluggish. 

His cock presses down between your legs just hard enough for it to feel like a dagger is being poked and twisted in his gut - and he doesn’t fight the urge to chase the tell-tale flickers of pleasure as they make his abdomen tighten - grinding into you and drinking your gasps as the sounds leave your mouth. 

_“Oh fuck, Javi…”_

Javier reaches between your bodies, undoes his fly - the cold metal digging into and biting your stomach as he rocks his hips forward again, heat spilling through him like gasoline. He fumbles for a second, gritting his teeth, kneeling over you as he rips his jeans from off his body - the sound almost obscenely loud as he kicks them away, the heavy fabric falling onto the floor next to his pool of cigarette ashes. 

He’s on you again within seconds, shifting you down the bed, his cock trapped hot against your stomach until you plant your feet on the bed and use them for leverage, pushing yourself up - catching your pussy against the head of his cock before you slide your hips back down again, urging the length of him to slide between your lips - back and forth over and over again, that maddening heat of anticipation winding tighter and tighter when he finally has enough of it - takes ahold of himself and lines himself up and exhales, molding over you like a second skin. 

And it’s- 

You are- 

_**“Fuck-”** _

He’s breathing hard and burning up and shuddering with the restraint of self-control - with the strain of his own stillness - as his palms skate against your lower back, floating just above each vertebrae, touching the notches of your spine. And you- you cry out - rolling your hips - breath catching and then dissolving into a flurry of movements - desperate for _something, anything_ \- stunned as the first inches of him sink into you, spreading you open - warm and wet and tight. 

Javier bottoms out, pulls back, presses in again slowly - slower than he can stand - chokes on the air in the room as he watches himself disappear inside you. You grasp at his biceps, too breathless to even kiss him - too breathless to think - to process anything other than the needlepoint quickly ascending where your bodies meet - the sound of your moans honey sweet and narrowed. And he thinks that he’s stupid - so fucking dumb for ever thinking that he could get away with this - with pretending like he could slip in and out of your life - because you’re so good to him. _So good._ Letting him fuck you when you should be screaming in his face. 

He loves you - loves you with an intensity that scares him - makes him feel like he’s moving against an ever rising tide - his head just above water. 

So the needy little sob you make - the one that catches hard against the back of your throat, his name spilling among them out of your high-pitched and splintered body, a desperate, overstimulated sound - his heart breaks a little - makes him cave as he rests his head against your shoulder, lips against the shell of your ear, reverent and adoring among a slew of meaningless curses. He’s not sure he can take much more of this - is never sure of anything when it comes to you and when you break beneath him - he breaks too. 

“Fuck… _fuck.”_

The world starts to come back in splinters, blurry and slightly out of focus the way sunlight is when it’s reflected against moving water. Everything feels too fragile and it makes him afraid to move, to look down at you or speak or literally do anything because the last thing he needs is to mess this up again. To solidify your hatred into something more real. 

“If you really need to go…you can go.” 

Javier drops his forehead to your shoulder and exhales sharply through his nose, his breath fanning against the curve of your jaw, making you shiver, sparking back into reality the weight of him still atop and inside you. 

“I’ll go in the morning…if you want that.” 

He removes himself from you, lays on his back and reaches like he’s going for his cigarettes then he must decide against it because he’s rolling onto his side, taking a hold of your wrist and kissing the back of your hand. 

This is too much - too much of a ricochet, your emotions crashing against one another, leaving you jarred. This can wait until morning. He can wait until morning. 

“Yeah,” you murmur. 

It will hurt a lot less.

“That’s fine.”

It will hurt a lot less.

“Go in the morning.” 


	9. The Sunshine

Christ on a fucking cracker. 

Is it possible to get sunstroke while inside? All the windows in your apartment are open, filtering occasional breezes that make your fevered skin prickle. Your curtains dance with the wind, flying through the air in billows of thin, white fabric before falling limp against the windowsills once more. The heat isn’t unbearable. Outside it’s comfortable, maybe a little hot directly in the sun, but children play in the street, laughing, unbothered as they spray each other with hoses. In the distance is a lawnmower, the sound of an airplane going by, and car horns. It’s peaceful. Familiar and relaxing. 

You’d enjoy it too if you didn’t feel like pyre, thrown in with other flammable materials to be burned. 

Your apartment has to be at least five degrees hotter than it is outside. Looking around, it’s almost like your place has turned into a piece by Salvador Dali; objects gliding in your vision like the slow dripping of paint, melting hazily in the warmth of the afternoon sun. 

You wouldn’t be so mad if you hadn’t been reminding your landlord that your air conditioner needs fixing long before the summer months rolled in. It broke last year at the end of August.

You’re not really sure how, but the dial that adjusts how much air blows out had broken off, and it must have signified the poor machine’s internal decay because not long after it was sputtering its last breaths. September brought cooler weather, so you braved the last few days of the season until the skies brought rain and you were able to shove it out of mind entirely. 

Until now, that is. It was when you were pulling it out of storage that you remembered its death, and because you forgot, you hadn’t replaced it. You put it in your window anyway, turned it on and hoped for the best. It functions, as in it makes a noise and takes up your electricity. It’ll sometimes (if you plead hard enough and promise to love it forever) manage to exhale a few puffs of cold air for about an hour or so; just long enough to make your apartment a little more bearable. 

It doesn’t matter how many requests you put in to get it fixed, however, because they just go seemingly ignored. Hell, he isn’t even in this neighborhood most of the time. Tracking him down is virtually impossible, and you don’t want to report him because really - he’s actually a pretty good landlord. Rent isn’t too bad, he gives you a break when you need it. You can’t exactly harp on him for a piece of equipment you need only a few months out of the year. 

But it’s _June_ and after meeting Javier you aren’t sure you can handle feeling like your living room turns into a sauna every time you have sex. It’s kind of sexy in the same way it was kind of sexy when ghost-Patrick Swayze caressed not-ghost Demi Moore. But not _that_ sexy in the same way that the clay must have made their hands uncomfortable and you hate sticking to your fucking leather couch. 

Javier hates it too. Has said he would get around to fixing it himself if that ‘ _pinche tacaño’_ won’t do it for you, but he hasn’t; either he’s too busy getting fucked by his higher ups or fucking you. His job keeps him away most days. At first it used to bother you, but you’ve gotten used to it, knowing any of the free time he’s granted he’s spending at your place or with you. When your relationship was in its infancy you worried the strain of him coming and going would kill off any potential of it growing into something more. That coupled with his incredible capability of making an ass of himself scared you. You spent far too many nights crying over him, arguing, doing anything _but_ talking about how you really feel. It was almost juvenile the way you tiptoed around each other for so long and it nearly brought you to your breaking point. There were more times than not that you believed every time he left would be the last time you’d see him; not because he’d get hurt (or worse) but because other than wishing you’d go somewhere safer and kissing you with a tenderness a man like him shouldn’t be capable of, there was little evidence for you to make a claim stating otherwise. 

Then you grew up, much like most people do; forced - compelled by some altering sharp turn; a critical point that made it apparent time spent not loving him freely was time wasted. It was if Javier had been unmasked, and you had been speaking with a stranger whose reactions you could not predict and hell: he was. Maybe he had always been a stranger. Thinking about it then, you didn’t even know his middle name. You knew the feel of his lips. You knew that he liked to have his hair pulled. You knew the kind of cigarettes he smoked and the way he liked his drinks. That should have amounted to something, but it didn’t. It was like, while building a castle of him in your mind, you picked up a handful of sand and it went falling through your fingers. No more a foundation than a structure kicked by the kids outside playing in the street right now. 

Now you know almost a little too much, know him a little too well. It makes your fighting - on the occasions they occur - vicious. The kind that makes your voice too loud; halfway to a sob, so angry you could honestly convince yourself you’d be fine if you never saw his face again. 

But then you relax. You breathe. You stare at him. During those moments it feels as if the quiet were expanding from somewhere inside of your chest; tugged downward by some invisible force. Gravity, maybe, but instead of spreading downward and covering the ground and your feet in a layer of fog it feels like it’s enveloping you in a heavy, suffocating blanket. 

And you realize all over again that you fell in love with the way he touches you without his hands. The way he looks at the whole of your face before kissing you. They way he’s spending his only day off in weeks to roast in your apartment because you _still_ haven’t been able to get it repaired and he loves you enough to be absolutely fucking miserable, to borrow tools from Steve, and show up feeling like Bob the fucking Builder if he smoked cigarettes, had a mustache, and taught kids how to track down drug traffickers using a landline and surveillance vans. 

Your handy-man (which you call him now because it sort of irritates him and also - he’s got the porn stache to warrant such an lewd nickname) crouches in front of your window now, a.c. unit on the floor in front of his feet. The front panel of it has been taken off and is laying like a pitiful, mechanical death mask among its dials and cords. In the half-hour Javier has been here, he’s managed to achieve literally almost nothing except swear at “este puto pedazo de mierda,” knock it around a few times in anger, then beg (just as you did many times before) for it to work because he really, really doesn’t want to spend the rest of his afternoon fucking around with cables and wires and compressors. 

You try to help with limited success. You know about as much about fixing shit as he does, which is basically bupkis. Right now you figure you should just invest in a new one. Chances are very high that your poor little robot will be far worse off than he was before Javier pretty much gutted him, and even if he does manage to get it working properly, there’s no telling for how long it’ll last. 

But buying shit like that is expensive and your bills have to be paid on time, even with how lax your landlord can be, you don’t want to make a habit of paying them late. That would almost certainly nix any possibility of getting a new air conditioner because you wouldn’t even have an apartment to put it in. You hate asking Javier for money, and deny the cash he does try to give you. Doesn’t mean he’s stopped offering, but it’s a pride thing. You don’t like relying on other people (a source of tension between you and Javier, you’re shamefully aware of). Even if it is something as arbitrary as replacing a broken lamp (which he did, and even though you had given him hell for breaking it, you still flushed with embarrassment when he rolled up with a brand new one). 

You leave him to step into your kitchen, the tile mercifully cold against your feet, opening the freezer and fridge doors to stand in front of it and let the recycled air cool you down. You feel an almost primitive pleasure in closing your eyes and lifting your hair, the same way little kids must feel the inexplicable satisfaction of stomping and jumping into puddles to watch the water rise like it had been struck by a meteor. The refrigerator hums, Javier bangs tools around and talks to himself in deep frustration, and you’re hit with how fucking domestic this feels. How if you hadn’t had your eyes closed, you wouldn’t be able to tell if you were settled into the rhythm of your life the way older people are or not. The kind of contentment that accompanies being at a grandparent’s house, the familiarity and quiet relaxation. For the first time since you brought the damn thing out of storage, whether it works or not no longer plagues your mind with frustrated anxiety because who cares? Your apartment is filled with the sweet scent of flowers and sun, the fridge is cool on your neck, and your _boyfriend_ is in the other room. 

All and all, life is good. 

It’s a fleeting feeling, you recognize, maybe like all of them are, but this one is more precarious; dissolves into nothing easier than the others. There will be times near in the future (could be tomorrow, who fucking knows), that you’ll feel like you’ve never experienced this kind of serenity in your life, centered and orbiting no doubt around Javier. For as just as much joy as he brings you, he’s brought about double that in pain; sometimes intentionally, but most of the time just by being him. Just by working. By meeting you in a bar and buying you a drink. You’ll forgive him for it, though. He does what he can and underneath that rough exterior is a man who cares about people, who tries to do what he believes is right. That’s all you can ask from him. 

When you open your eyes again everything looks intensely bright. The counters and walls are bathed in orange. Flowers Javier had gotten you a few days ago (already browning because of the hot weather) are translucent, absorbing the light in the color of their petals as if tiny light bulbs had been lit inside them. The simplistic beauty of it is almost overwhelming and you don’t know why you hadn’t noticed it before. Too caught up in the fucking mess your feelings were for Javi, perhaps. You met him not long after moving in (which was why you were so pissed about the lamp; he broke one of the only ones you had), so you began to associate your living space with complicated, confusing emotions, and yeah: incredible sex. It was weird, but now you can see all around you more clearly, like he had pulled away the curtains. 

“I’m sorry, honey,” Javier startles you by walking in, cleaning his dirty hands on a paper towel. He’s got the first few buttons of his yellow dress shirt undone, his typically neatly styled hair cowlicked in some places from where he no doubt was pulling it in frustration and flattened down and hanging in front of his forehead by perspiration. “I can’t get that piece of shit working. You’re gonna have to call someone.” 

There’s an ‘or’ on his tongue that he hasn’t let himself speak yet, tossing the paper towel into the trash. _Or you could let me buy you a new one, it says_. But you’ve refused every time and he’s getting tired of fighting with you about it. It gives him more of an excuse to get you over to his place, anyway. 

You sigh with no real disappointment, able to predict that was coming. “It’s alright. It was a piece of junk anyway. I’ll figure it out.” 

Javier glances at you sharply, shaking his head as he fishes his carton of cigarettes from out of his back pocket. He places one between his lips then lights it, noticing your suspicious expression but speaking anyway. “Coulda had this ‘figured out’ weeks ago if you weren’t so fucking stubborn.” 

You immediately roll your eyes, turning around to grab a glass from your cabinet situated near enough to the fridge that you don’t have to move away from the cool air. “That’s rich coming from you, Pena,” you fire back, looking at him from over your shoulder. “You sure you wanna play this game?” 

“No. I’m not.” Javier grins, wiping away sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. He watches you pour yourself a glass of water, retrieving some ice cubes from out of their tray. They clink against the rim as they sink briefly before rising back to the top. He licks his lips, suddenly conscious of how dry his mouth is, but before he can so much as move you’re reaching into the fridge and turning around with a beer. 

“Can I get you a drink? You look thirsty.” 

You almost laugh at yourself. That line has been so overused that it borders on comical, but you want nothing more than to undress him, so playing into this fantasy (as silly as it is), is a turn-on when it’s got him involved. 

Javier must think the same thing because he looks into your face as he puts out his cigarette, blowing whatever smoke was left in his lungs out through his nose. “Yeah,” he confirms, taking a step closer to you, his head spinning and failing miserably to come up with anything more sexy than a monosyllable. “Real thirsty.” 

Beads of condensation roll down the dark brown bottle and onto your fingers, damp and refreshing and almost a little sticky feeling. You adjust your grip around it, holding it by the neck, circling the top and around the indented edges of the cap. Javier’s eyes follow, intent and feeling suddenly much heavier, as you hold it out to him. 

One fifth of a moment passes as lazily as syrup. Your fingers touch as he reaches for the bottle, then his palm is enveloping the glass. The pad of his thumb skims your own before he’s pushing against the rim, forcing the thin metal up and off the lip. Water vapor rises from inside, looking like smoke swirling around in the charged air before disappearing. Javier swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing. A tightness tugs at his gut, familiar and tense. He brings the drink to his lips for a modicum of relief, downing its contents with purposefulness. 

And you watch. Sweat rolls down his neck like rain against a window. The droplets disappear into his shirt, absorbed by the fabric, pooling and discoloring his collar. The ones that miss travel further down into his jugular notch, then they too disappear. Your hand flutters through the air, caught half-way between action and inaction. Your brain knows what it wants to do, what it wants you to do. The urge to touch his chest, to feel his heated skin beneath your fingers is so great that it’s made you nearly immobile. Little to no thoughts enter your head; nothing about the way he’s stopped drinking, or the way he’s edged a little closer. Nothing about how he’s reaching over you to set the bottle down. Nothing as he boxes you between the counter and his body. 

Just basic understandings. The gist of what he’s doing. The smell of his cologne and the alcohol on his breath. The way his arms are on either side of you now, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, masculine forearms flexing as he braces his weight against them so that he’s leaning down, closer; inches from your face now. His breath is hot, even, but his eyes are what betray him. 

They are liquid, deep pools of brown nearly swallowed black by his pupils. For someone who can be so cut-off, they express far more about his current state than anything else. Most of the time when you’re trying to understand how he’s feeling, all you’ve got to do is watch. Look for the way he rubs his shoulder and tilts his head a little when he’s tired. The way he scratches his eyebrow when he’s stunned into disbelief. How he clicks his jaw to the side when he’s disappointed. Even the way he lights his cigarette differs depending on his mood. He isn’t used to being noticed in those ways and so he dances between disliking it and finding it a relief: an alleviation of the burden of having to verbalize what’s going on when he lacks the eloquence and words that surpass describing just being angry. 

He watches you just the same, knows what makes you tick; not just because he’s been trained and fucking retrained to be constantly vigilant and suspicious of people, but because (at least at first) he had been afraid - well, not quiet afraid but something close, something that made his stomach feel like it had been filled with air; uncomfortable and anxious - of scaring you off, so he altered his behavior. Hid parts of himself he knows aren’t smooth around the edges. Talked you up at that bar bought you a drink, spun you around until you were breathless; laughing and leaning into his chest. Leading you to a dark corner of the bar, taking you to the bathroom. After that night he knew he had to be someone else, at least for a little while. 

And so his eyes reveal the pieces hidden, lost to your untrained gaze back then but disclosed to you now. 

“ _Jesus_ ,” Javier is speaking, drawing your eyes to his mouth. “It’s hotter in here than it is in the living room.” He makes no indication of moving away, though, of giving himself some space to breathe; speaking just to fill the silence, to ease yourselves into this game you seem to be playing. 

“Mhm,” you hum your agreeance, noticing the day old stubble that peppers his jaw and cheeks. He’ll shave later tonight or tomorrow morning, leave annoying little hairs in your sink. “If someone fixed the air conditioner, it’d be a lot cooler.”

“Funny. You’re funny.” Javier ducks his head, brushes his lips against yours in seconds so brief that when you finally catch up to him, you’re left trailing after his kiss, following helplessly (pathetically) as he leans back. 

“Don’t do that to me,” you whine, reaching for his shirt, tugging him closer. 

“Don’t make fun of me,” he immediately retorts, far too smug about the reactions he can drag out of you. You’d feel embarrassed if you didn’t know that, for all of his egotistical satisfaction, he can be played just as easily. A little tug at his hair. Your nails digging into his back. A sweet moan of his name. All of it would unravel him just as he unravels you. The best part is that he knows that, yet is a little bit of a dick anyway, giving you an excuse to throw it right back at him: give him a taste of his own medicine. 

“You’re an asshole.” Your voice holds no venom, amused laughter fizzing throughout your words like bubbles in a glass of champagne. You spread your hands against his chest, feeling the solid warmth and soft muscle beneath. Compelled to feel it without the hindrance of his shirt, you begin to undo the buttons; one by one until it’s opened, revealing his torso to your delicate ministrations. 

“Yeah,” Javi agrees, husky, speaking lower as your touches travel downward and spread across the skin of his stomach. A scar rises slightly, still a light shade of pink, along his side near his hip. He was wearing a shirt similar to this when he showed up bleeding at your door. That had been the worst night of your life. You don’t remember much of it, at least not the real specific details: the way it made you feel, however, still creeps in the back of your mind, comes roaring to the front on evenings your anxiety is at its height. It wasn’t until later, much later, that Javier revealed what you had said to each other. What you had mumbled, half delirious on grief and exhausted from adrenaline. At least he would have known. At least he knows now. 

You skim over it, touch feather-light; careful as if using more force would split it open and stain your fingers red. 

Then you force yourself to move on, to curl your fingers through his belt loops and use them as leverage to align your hips with his. He grunts, large palms easing to your waist. 

“What’s that make you?” 

You smile, look up at him with an affection that blooms throughout your lungs and makes your heart beat a little faster; overwhelmed with your sudden rush of tenderness for him. “In love.” 

Javier blinks at you then tilts his head back and laughs, surprised by your genuine and saccharine sweet answer. Then he’s rolling his eyes and moving forward again, this time with renewed purpose. “You’re so fucking cheesy.” 

Yet he feels like he might burst too, consumed by the weight and fear of loving you back. He messed it up the first time. Ruined something that could have been really great. Gave up an entirely different life to chase criminals for a living in a country that has changed him forever. He father was right (is always fucking right), but it hasn’t all been bad. It hasn’t all been pain and heartache and anger. How could it be when it’s involved you? 

“That too.” 

Javier kisses you fully and the atmosphere is suddenly stifling again. The kind of heat that feels like its pressing down on you, uncomfortable and heavy. You don’t dare pull back, lost easily in the tide of his lips; the way his tongue slips across your bottom one, the way he deepens it then pulls back, leading you on then giving you relief. He hands catch against your hips the way slightly wet skin catches itself against other parts of the body. They feel impossibly warm, callused and strong. Protective. Gentle when he wants them to be. Another part of his anatomy you’re obsessed with. Javi uses them to lift your shirt over your head, the cotton just as pliable as you are beneath his fingers. He drops it, already moving on. 

He doesn’t do what you expect. 

You’ve been watching him, panting. The breeze doesn’t quite reach your kitchen and the fridge doors are closed making the room feel hotter, like the walls are contracting and the ceiling is closer but that isn’t the only thing forcing you to catch your breath. 

Javier reaches into the freezer, your view blocked by his arm and the side of the fridge itself. You listen as he moves things around, tossing a bag of frozen peas and carrots to the side before it seems he finally finds what he’s looking for, and when he pulls back his hands you’re chest expands, air caught in your throat. 

Ice cubes glisten in the light, the tops of them already melting. Javier plucks one of them out, the miniature glacier sliding between his pointer, middle finger, and thumb before he rights it; get a good enough grip that he can hold it without the threat of it slipping. “Lean back,” he instructs, nestling a thigh between your legs. It takes a second for your brain to process his words; short-circuited by the implications of the ice cube and his direction. 

Bracing yourself on your elbows, you lean back as much as the space behind you will allow. Javier bends over you, pushes away your hair and for a second just lets himself look: at the way your breasts rise and fall, the way it’s covered in a light sheen of sweat. You’re beautiful. “Javi…” he hears your plea, your baited question but he doesn’t respond and takes his time taking you in. When you let him see you like this he’s almost always in disbelief. At your beauty, at your trust in him, at your vulnerability. Since the day you met him you’ve been open, candid, and held far more faith in him than you should have (than you still do). It’s something about you that is still catching him off guard. 

Water drips down the side of his palm, little beads hitting like rain against your stomach from where he’s hovering the cube above you. He brings it up to your neck, then, and glides the very top of it along your collarbones. It leaves a trail like ink on parchment and you shiver, glancing back at Javier in time to see him duck his head and lick the water off; the juxtaposition between the freezing cold and heat of his mouth compelling a moan, pitched and so fucking pitiful, come tumbling past your lips. 

Javi reaches out, runs the fingers of his free hand up and down your ribs in a silent, soothing gesture. He returns the item to your scorched skin, peppers kisses to the top of your boobs before he guides it a little lower; down your belly button, then circling back up. With a tug, your bra shifts and reveals your breasts to him, both so soft, the skin around them flushed. “You like that?” 

You nod so fast you feel dizzy, unable to verbalize a response. If you try to talk now it would be nothing but gibberish; half finished sentences of barely coherent thoughts. All you can focus on is the slight burn of the ice; how delicious it feels when he swirls it around your nipples. It’s melting faster now, and everywhere it goes his lips follow until the ice cube has almost disappeared. “Mírate,” he murmurs, “te ves tan caliente así. Open your mouth.” 

Javier drags what’s left of it along your bottom lip, then slips it between both as you do as he says. The water is still cool, refreshing. You feel a little dirty, but the feeling is heavily outweighed by how fucking arousing this all is. The pads of his fingers follow and you suck on them, swirling your tongue around the tops before letting them go. Javier closes his eyes, groans low in his throat and grinds his hips, the tip of his cock catching against your inner thigh. You gasp, lips red and spit-slick, cunt constricting air emptiness. 

He catches himself, swallows the white-hot and trembling pleasure that washes over him. “AlmostMadeMeCumBabyHolyShit,” his words are rushed, tense and strung together. Once again his palm is on you, digits caressing your skin in a fragile pattern; between the valley of your breasts and your sternum, across your rib-cage, taking in the way goosebumps rise to the surface 

“Fuck - please, Javi-” You aren’t entirely sure what you’re asking for, but you know that you can’t go another second without something more from him. You want him so badly that it feels like your teeth are vibrating. It’s so encompassing that you don’t even feel smug about how tightly you’ve got Javier wound. The counter digs uncomfortably into your back, your shoulders beginning to ache. You aren’t sure how much more of this you can take, but then Javier is moving again - but he’s good to you - notices immediately and snakes a hand into your messy hair, pulling you into a heady, messy, and demanding kiss. 

Your hands shake where you’re gripping his biceps in an effort to anchor yourself; a sharp, somehow relieving soreness blooming between your shoulder blades and then relaxing, the muscles no longer exerted to the point of hurting. He caresses you with the hand that isn’t in your hair, rubs your elbow then slides it up your arm, it’s final destination your throat. He cups the junction between your jaw and throat, presses his thumb lightly against your pulse point; feeling how it jumps in response. 

Meanwhile you make quick work with his jeans, pleased to find he had foregone a belt and nearly moaning when you find he had foregone boxers as well. He’s hard against your hand, red and so, so sensitive. The sight of it makes you chew the inside of your cheek, your clit throbbing. You begin to pump your hands, imagining all the times it’s been inside you, the way his head hits you just right and you gape, filled with the urge to take him in your mouth. But then he’s lifting you, holding you up as he pulls away from the counter and heads towards the table, kicking one of the chairs out with his boot. 

It clatters, nearly falls over and then rights itself. 

He sits, settles you into his lap, holds your hips down. His breath steams out fast, only adding to the mounting warmth that blankets your apartment. He lifts you up only to help you remove your shorts, then he’s pressing you back down, grinding your cunt against his cock. You swallow, lolling your head back, his presence all consuming. “Ojos en mi,” he says hoarsely and the dull recesses of your mind respond, your head dipping forward, his eyes on you like two scortching suns. “That’s it, baby,” Javier praises, hooking his fingers into your panties, tugging them to the side. 

Javier rocks, pushes up into your cunt, splitting you open. He leans you back, sits up a little and watches as he sinks inside inch by inch, palm splayed across your tummy like a fan. Javi begins to push your hips, back-and-forth, transfixed as his cock slides in and then out. “So fucking pretty,” he murmurs. “Me encanta este cono. Te quiero.” Honey sweet and impossibly low, his voice goes straight to your cunt. 

Your back arches up - up up up - and liquid, lust clouded eyes rake over your body; the warm pressure on your stomach moving to your breasts, cupping one of them and feeling its weight. His first shallow thrust draws your foggy, fading attention back to his face. Javi’s cheeks are flushed, his neck peppered in splotches of red. Perspiration builds on both of you, making you slick as you roll to meet him. His lips are rosy, set in a slight pout before curling as he picks up his pace. 

He holds you tight, yanks you forward and crushes you to his chest, presses his nose into your hair and he can feel you shake with the force of your moans. Tight, airy, choked. Javier grits his teeth to keep himself from fucking you until your crying out and shaking on his cock. You’re a picture above him, nearly sereine. The sunlight comes in just right, casts your silhouette in a golden halo. He doesn’t stop touching you - can’t stop - roaming and gripping and feeling like he’s starved for it. 

And you press against his chest, dig your fingers into the warm flesh and grind against his pelvis, desperate for that last bit of stimulation. 

He moves between your bodies. All it takes is two, maybe three quick strokes for you to cry out - his name caught half-way in your throat, dying as you sob into his neck. You cum hard enough that it must be painful yet he works you through it anyway, even when you shy away in hypersensitivity and blabber at him nonsensically, pleading that it’s too much. He knows he can draw another one from you; sharper and stronger than the last. 

You tremble, rut into his touch and keen; high and loud, the sound of it surely drifting through your open windows and into the street below. Javier strokes your hair, shushes you through it, ragged and just as drawn out as you. 

His orgasm hits him like a fucking bullet, makes his muscles tense up and his grip on you tighten. Everything is too much. Too hot. Too fucking bright. He goes limp against the back of the chair, dragging you with him. It takes a long time for the world to come back into view; for your vision to refocus. You blink, eyelids as heavy as cement, and notice the forgotten tray of ice cubes has melted and created a pool of water next to the fridge. 

“Maybe,” you slur as you return to life, “maybe I shouldn’t get the a.c. fixed.” 

“Yeah,” Javi agrees, watching as the wind carries your curtains further into the room. 

“You shouldn’t.”


	10. The Apology

Your key slides into the lock with a click. 

You turn it once to the left, then back to the center before removing it and placing them into your other hand, empty palm reaching for the doorknob. 

The door opens into your apartment, bringing with it every familiar smell and comfort of being home, nearly identical to how you left it but not quite, light from the hall pouring into your darkened entryway. 

But you don’t notice that the door’s already been unlocked. Or that the lamp you left on (a precaution you picked up years ago from your parents to make people passing by believe someone was home; somehow to prevent burglaries, you don’t know) either way it is now turned off. Or that light is spilling out from your kitchen, a warm white, fluorescent glow against your wooden floors. 

You don’t notice because you’re tired and these are little things, passing over your exhausted consciousness without much effort. It’s been a long time since work has made your feet hurt this badly, and no attempt to curl and stretch your toes in your shoes at your desk qualmed the ache settling deep in their arches. As the strain settled, it made the pain travel up your legs and into your lower back, strained from sitting in a chair all day. From there, it bloomed further upwards, leading and branching into your shoulders, bunching the muscle and bone together like tightly furrowed wings before the soreness settled momentarily at your neck. It lived there content until you got into the car, where it traveled like a spindly vine up the notches of your seven little cervical vertebrae and by the time you were putting the vehicle in park, the throb had taken root in your skull, and now all you can focus on is the pounding headache pulsing in your ears to the tempo of your heartbeat. 

You need new shoes - something more supportive, less constricting with more arch support. Fuck, those are such adult thoughts, but you can’t help it. Maybe Javi bought you insoles. God, you really hope so. The little blue or green gel kind you find in pharmacies all over the place. The kind that you look at standing in the middle of the medicine and shampoo aisle at the grocery store, squish and mess around with your fingers thinking suddenly like a real grown-up that ‘yeah, I’ll buy this’ and yet never do. You’ve been meaning to get some for yourself but have, for whatever reason, never gotten around to it. It seems like your life so far has been a series of ‘meaning-to’s.’ You’ve been meaning to get your air conditioner fixed, the poor device still lying lifeless beneath the window that overlooks the street. You’ve been meaning to deep clean your cupboards. You’ve been meaning to buy yourself some new curtains. 

Had already bought yourself a new blanket.

Some insoles.

You’ve been meaning to replace the lock. 

**_Fuck._** The lock. 

Freezing in your hallway, you don’t dare take another step, suddenly aware of the eerie quiet that blankets your apartment like a grey and heavy layer of smog. Frozen in your terror, you think back to your day so far. How only one of your coworkers wished you a happy birthday (which they had only known because they asked you what your plans were for the night, hoping you’d pick up a shift). How you bought yourself some overly-processed, sugary dessert yesterday and how it remains intact and uneaten in its plastic packaging on a white, metal shelf in your fridge, slotted neatly next to an unopened bottle of wine and some take-out, candles resting idly in the drawer beside your sink underneath the microwave. You think about how you’re another year older, stuck in the city you’re just getting familiar with, yearning for something different yet never brave enough to actually strive for it. How Javier is the most exciting thing that’s happened to you, which is so incredibly, unbelievably sad because the ‘spice’ he adds most of the time is heartache; worry and stress, painting your life in shades of red and blue and _sometimes_ , sometimes a sweet, calming yellow. 

He’s getting better and so are you. He had even suggested dinner with his friends - Steve and Connie. _The Murphys._ Their names strike an anxious sort of excitement in your heart and maybe it’s pathetic to be so hung up on something so fleeting and arbitrary as meeting a few people in his life, but you’ll take anything. 

He forgot, though.

He hasn’t called. There’s no blinking red dot on your answering machine. The device isn’t waiting patiently for you to bring its voice to life with his message, whatever he might have to say - the sweet, low baritone of his words not pre-loaded and ready to go. 

He hasn’t visited. 

Hasn’t said a goddamn word or left so much as a half-assed, quickly scrawled note written in his condensed uppercase handwriting taped to your front door. 

And you think about how none of that will matter if a stranger is in your apartment with you; the kind of intruder that Javier fears, has warned you against so many times you could recite his instructions back at him verbatim. He’s got you like - fucking trained now after his false alarm - after Connie and Steve’s scare, too. You check every window, secure every lock. Identify where you keep your pepper spray. Where the metal bat rests just underneath your bed. 

Yet your head is pretty much empty. Any sort of survival instinct aborted, lost among the grief of realizing today, just now, that on your birthday you’re entirely alone. 

The floor creaks against the weight of your steps as you tread lightly further into your apartment towards your living room, so focused on being quiet, on taking even and balanced steps to keep the floorboards from groaning that the items you pass come to you in abstract understanding. No real thoughts, just observations. Taking in your surroundings as they come into view. 

The spine of your worn leather couch. The fall of your old curtains. The small, antique record player you received a few birthdays ago, a gift from your best friend, resting on your bookshelf against the far side wall. 

Normal, familiar things tempting you to let them wash you with a sense of calm intimacy.

So it takes you a minute to really think about what the light coming from your kitchen means; a dim and flickering flame casting shadows against your plaster walls and wooden floors. It draws you back, makes you inhale and you can faintly register that the air smells of light smoke; of something charred, like it was left to burn a little too long then suddenly blown out and re-lit. The smell of your childhood, of dimly lit rooms filled with your classmates and family - a camcorder held up somewhere in your periphery, your father’s face behind the massive screen and a cake bought and decorated by grocery store employees with whatever character or interest had been the subject of your innocent, little kid focus the longest that year in front of you on the table. 

There’s shuffling, a sharp, hushed, irritated voice breaking the quiet like shattering glass and then a more solid movement; advancing closer and bringing with it a glow half-hidden by what you’ll later realize was the hand he had kept in front of the candle to keep it from blowing out as he walked, already frustrated with his inability to keep it lit the first time. 

You look up into his face just in time to see him looking at yours. 

“Happy birthday, honey.” 

Javier stands at the threshold between your kitchen and living room holding a cupcake. The icing is a little uneven, like he had accidentally dipped a finger in it while trying to adjust the wick, and the edges of the paper covering the cupcake’s bottom is peeling like it had been left to sit a little too long and got warm, but otherwise it’s perfect looking: a vanilla base with shiny chocolate frosting. Submerged in its center is a blue striped candle that if not extinguished within the next few seconds would start to drip wax. 

“There’s more in the kitchen, just so you don’t think I’m some cheap-ass who bought you one cupcake.” He explains, moving closer. 

You let him, feet planted. This side of Javier is something you’re still trying to get used to seeing. Certainly not now after thinking he was someone else. The man who came to your apartment on his only day off to sweat and be miserable while trying to fix your shit. The man who says that he loves you openly, shows it without an argument serving as some horrible, heart wrenching precursor. You’re still unable to hear the words without the electrification of your blood accompanying them - your pulse quickening, your nerves and muscles filling with static. Still can’t believe how far you’ve come. 

You’re left just standing there, trying to process it. The cupcake. His face. The flickering flame of the candle. The fact that it’s him standing here and not some man sent to kill you. 

And he finds himself growing increasingly self-conscious about the whole thing the longer it’s taking you to respond - like he had overstepped some invisible bound that only you were aware of and so he shifts his weight, then rubs his mouth with his free hand and scratches his bottom lip with his thumb. 

“I-uh…I know it’s not a lot, but I kinda feel like a dickhead standing here while you’re not saying anything.” 

You blink then frown, feeling silly and stupid that you had underestimated him.

“I thought you forgot…” You speak gently, looking at him like you might find something you’ve misplaced, something you had once - something very briefly that had been yours and now you needed it back. 

Of course you’d think that. Until recently he hasn’t given you much reason to believe that he remembered anything you told him - not because he’s forgetful or hadn’t been listening, but because he wasn’t as invested in you as you are with him. At least that’s what you thought. That’s what it seemed like, anyway. 

Javier relaxes, glances down at the candle as it cries with hot wax, his fingers catching the tears as they roll before they can ruin the icing. 

“I remember everything you tell me.” 

“Javi-” 

“You might want to blow out the candle first.” He interrupts, bringing your attention back to the pastry in his hand. 

You lean forward, take a long look at his face, still searching, then go to extinguish the flame. 

“Make a wish.” 

You pause just as you’re about to exhale and cock your head, nearly laughing, startled by the sweet, almost silly sentiment. 

“You actually believe in that shit?” You ask although there isn’t so much mocking judgement in your voice as there is bittersweet nostalgia of birthdays past, hints of the self-pity you’ve built up throughout the day etched in the cracks between. He’s doing his best. He’s trying. That’s all you can ask of him, and for that alone he’s made tonight infinitely better. 

“When it comes to you, yeah.” He confirms easily, voice low and open and honest.

You inhale sharply, your breathing stuttering and stalling, something small and hot bursting inside your chest and it feels like, momentarily, you might drown or suffocate or just fucking cease to exist all together with the weight of your affection for him. _Oh._ You think. Your brain feels squeezed and useless and you have to remind yourself to return to the candle, still burning and now dripping wax at a faster rate. 

So you close your eyes, try to think of something that you really, truly want, but with him standing in front of you with his sort of pleased, abashed half-grin and the cupcake you know that he swore at and mulled over purchasing at whatever bakery he picked these up from you’re struck with the realization that you can’t think of anything to wish for - not anything serious, not anything valid enough to waste something like a birthday wish on - because you’ve already got it, parts of it, the foundations of it. It needs work. It needs _so much work_. But it’s there and it’s solid and you have it in both your hands. 

You have it in front of you, it’s handsome features flickering in a tiny, dying orange-yellow flame. 

When you stand up straighter and open your eyes, he’s already plucking the torch from the frosting and offering it to you to lick whatever cake and icing got stuck to the bottom and sides of the candle, asking what you wished for. 

“If I told you, it wouldn’t come true.” You take the item from him and scrape off a little of the chocolate, looking at him matter-of-factly as you lick it from off your thumb and pointer finger. 

Javier frowns as he peels the wrapping away from the cake, then moves closer and with his free hand tugs you flush with his chest by your hip. “Not even a hint? Maybe I can help make it come true.” 

_You already have,_ you want to tell him, but you like the secret pleasure of knowing, of harboring this knowledge just a little while longer. 

“No. That’s not how wishes work.” You place one hand on his chest, grabbing the dessert from him with the other before bringing it to your face and taking a large bite. Javier watches, chuckles at the way the icing smears a little around your mouth and on the tip of your nose, and thinks not for the first time that he would try to take care - be more considerate and soft and tender; everything that makes him want to recoil in fear and disgust. He’ll try not to take too much more from you, no more than he can give back, aware that he’s made similar resolutions but never now - when things are finally beginning - things that terrify him. He can’t protect you from this, not entirely, not without having to give you up and until now he never really understood what a brave little thing it was to be in love with someone, and to voice that love too. How the words could hang there, edged with fearful expectations and relying on hope. 

But it feels like a _good_ thing, like the loosening of something hard and constricting, the shedding of a second skin. 

“You want me to guess?” Javier offers, swiping at the corner of your lips where chocolate has collected. He pauses, pretends to think about it, really just enjoying the sound of your giggling. “Alright,” he gets serious, places his hands on his hips. “You wished for that stupid fucking a.c. to start working.” 

You raise your eyebrows as you continue to laugh, loud and sweet as honey, setting his heart on fire. “No,” you drawl, taking another bite. “But that’s a good one.” 

That thing has been a pain in your ass since you moved in - a menace hovering in the back of your head on every cool day and right at the front on every day that’s hot. You’ll get around to it, some day. Just like you’ll get around to getting those inserts. 

“I don’t think you’re going to get it.” You shrug, licking your fingers. You won’t think too hard about why that is, or the root of such causes - too depressing for birthday thoughts. 

“Why not?” Javier asks anyway and you offer him the rest of your cupcake, grinning again when he takes it and dejectedly takes a bite. 

“Because I know you. Because I know how you think.” And you do - maybe more than you’d like sometimes because it makes being mad at him, wanting to hate him sometimes, so fucking hard. So maybe you’re too understanding or too compassionate or too much of everything but whatever, it doesn’t matter because you’d rather be too much with him than nothing at all. 

“I already have what I want, Javier. I didn’t need to make a wish.” You explain, bringing your hand to his jaw, tracing the smooth curve of his cheekbone with the pad of your thumb. 

“Yeah?” He whispers, almost like he can’t believe what he’s hearing, what you’re saying to him and the honesty behind your words. How could they be true after the shit he’s put you through? There isn’t a part of him that doesn’t still think you deserve so much better. 

“Yeah.” 

And there’s a pause as you both try to reorient yourselves, the air shifting in a charged silence. 

The two of you meld together so seamlessly it’s simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. Even on your worst nights, when things feel like they’re shattering and breaking and there’s this big fucking gap in the floor that just seems to keep growing larger and larger until you’re miles apart. The two of you balance each other out, living like two incomplete, unimportant halves until you come together again. And it’s funny how most people can be around someone and gradually begin to fall in love with them and never know exactly when it happened, but you can pinpoint each exact moment Javier claimed pieces of your heart - know the very second it happened and what he did that made life a little clearer and more in focus. 

Right now is one of those pinpoints - it’s own tiny universe. 

He leans down and kisses you, tosses whatever crumbs remained of the dessert somewhere to the side - you don’t know, don’t really care right now, you’ll clean it up later - and cups your face with his hands. You love him so much in this moment that it hurts, makes you feel too fragile and weak especially as the weight and presence of Javier rushes into your head like the ocean at high tide. You’re swept up, buried by a wave of helpless, frantic and sort of poignant need to feel him and feel this after the kind of day you’ve had, after the turmoil you put yourself through thinking he had forgotten. 

This kind of closeness and intimacy you’ve spent so fucking long wanting. 

You make a noise, a soft pathetic little sound that has his arms dropping to your waist, large palms pressed just beneath your shoulder blades. Your fingers curl into the front of his shirt, the fabric loose and gathered between your knuckles, and you’re tempted to fiddle with the white buttons right then, get him undressed as quickly as possible, but you need to move first, need to get out of this doorway and somewhere more solid. 

And he must register that too because he’s pulling away, looking down at you - looks at you as if you’re not real, like he can’t bring himself to think that it’s true, willing himself to memorize every sweet and perfect detail of your face with eyes that are hazy and blown as if in the next instance you’d disappear. You must be looking at him like that, too - just as invocational and desperate, so when he leads you towards your bedroom you follow easily, letting yourself get lost in the rhythm of him and his movements. 

His jacket is the first thing to go, stoking a fire in your chest.

Then your shirt. 

His. 

Back and forth. A swaying and lulling wave of gestures and peeling, discarding and unbuttoning and pulling until there’s nothing left, until the back of your knees are hitting the edge of the mattress and you’re being lowered down onto the plush surface gently, so carefully. And he’s hovering above you, hands planted in the pillows that are starting to smell like him on either side of your head and normally you’d feel trapped, caught beneath his body with nowhere to go but if there’s one thing scarier than aging and suffering the passage of time it’s doing it alone so you like that he’s so close, that you could turn your head and kiss the inside of his wrist - that it’s him and not someone else you’re turning a year older with. 

You open your mouth as if to say something but the words are lodged in your throat, trapped by the constant influx of nearly tangible emotions he’s putting you through, but whatever you had been about to say doesn’t matter because he’s leaning down and kissing you again, his tongue coaxing your mouth open and he tastes like the chocolate icing, the sweetness of the cake, and something so achingly, painfully familiar that it makes you want to both pull back and bring him closer. If only you could have foreseen this, if only you could have given yourself this comfort, because then maybe today wouldn’t have been so bad. 

Javier’s hips fit snugly between your thighs, one of his practiced and steady hands moving to slide up your waist and over your ribcage, his thumb skimming the underside of your breast. The reverence in his expression makes you want to squirm, to slide away from his gaze before he notices a flaw or imperfection. But then he’s talking, speaking under his breath, and it fucking just like - disintegrates any fear you have of him finding an insecurity because if he’s thinking this to himself, speaking with the affirmation and conviction and sincerity of a prayer than what gives you the right to tell him that he’s wrong? 

“You’re fucking perfect,” he mumbles, his breath sharp and hot and the feeling of it coupled with his benediction sparks a flare of emotion through the fogginess of your blurred mind - incomprehensible longing, obscured yearning and love so profound it makes your lungs expand as if they, too, can’t handle the pressure of him and his devotion. 

You reach for him with renewed purpose, press your fingers into his back, desperate to absorb him like a cloth soaking up water trying to keep this feeling, make it permanent. Javier winds his fingers into your hair, digging slightly into your scalp and drawing frantic little moans from you that pulse and vibrate his entire nervous system and you can feel his cock straining at the crux of your thigh, hard and hot and pressing against you, so you roll your hips - just a little, just enough to get him moving - and he pulls back with a groan, his bottom lip red and swollen, his brown eyes wide and focused intently on your face. 

Then he’s on you again, filling your head with fog, and you can feel his muscles tense up as he lets out a faint moan, meeting you as you rock. “I don’t – _christ_ – I don’t want you to regret this, baby.” 

You have to blink away your confusion, already too warm, too engulfed in flames, your entire body singing in his presence and so for a second you have no idea what the fuck he’s talking about - what he could mean - but then you realize that he’s talking about being serious, about figuring this shit out and making it work and actually being something and now you know that he’s afraid, a little bit at least, that you’re going to realize what a big mistake you had made by letting him in to your life. He’s told you enough of his past that you know that these fears aren’t unfounded - that he’s done some fucked up shit and hurt someone who cared about him badly, yet you can’t find it in yourself to be afraid right now with him. 

You just can’t. Not after all of this. 

“I couldn’t, Javier. I won’t,” you affirm as you glide your hand up his chest, then trace his cheek. If only he could see himself the way you do, experience somehow the way you feel for him, because then he wouldn’t even be asking - he wouldn’t have to. 

You feel more aware of him than you ever have - the way he flushes, the way he trembles slightly with constricting self-control and need and want and everything else he’s constantly putting on a leash. These things that push at the barriers he’s put up. He’s everywhere at once, his mouth warm and a little chapped as he kisses across your chest. His fingers barely ghost over your skin, dragging down your stomach, between your legs, pressing against your clit in varying degrees of pressure - soft, a little more firmly, hard and soft again - then he’s pushing two fingers inside of you, his breathing labored and hitched. And he fucking _curls_ them just right, starts to pump and the -

The effect is instantaneous. You mewl, lift your waist then drop it down against his wrist, digging your fingers into his back with so much force you’re sure he’ll be left with crescent shape marks indented into his tan skin once you let go. His thumb makes slow, small circles against the bundle of nerves and he’s still speaking underneath his breath, swearing, practically chanting all the things he wants to do to you, how he wants to make you feel good. 

But then he’s removing them, and you feel their loss so intensely that you gasp, nearly crying out - _complaining_ \- but words stuck to your mouth like paste and you’re so worked up already that you can’t handle the absence of any part of him, or even try to articulate it. The ache that settles in your cunt is uncomfortable in the sweetest, most agonizing way. It doesn’t matter that you’ve barely just begun, just being with him sets off an undercurrent of spasming and fluttering desire, and after the kind of day you’ve had all you want to do is get off. All you want to do is let him make you feel good, and make him feel good too. 

So when he sits up and takes a hold of his cock, sucking in a breath through his teeth, you nearly rejoice, your veins thumping beneath your skin in stat-icky anticipation. 

Javier prods your cunt, coats the head of his cock with your slick until it’s unbearable - until neither of you can take it anymore - then guides the length to your entrance, grabbing the curve of your hip as he pushes himself inside. It’s - _it’s so fucking good_ , pleasure lighting up the nerves down your thighs, chills of bliss racing through you. Choking on your own breath, you try to regain your focus but it’s impossible now, blanketed in an all-encompassing euphoria that only grows heavier as he starts to move. 

Javier snaps his hips into yours, setting a pace, his lips parted and his brows furrowed, oxygen trapped in his lungs and the world a little off kilter. Skin slaps against skin, sweat beading between your bodies, and he leans forward again, covers you with his chest and kisses you like it’s the most important thing in the fucking world right now. Arousal, heady and overwhelming, replaces your blood, and as he pulls you closer - driving himself into you again and again and again - you feel acidic and scorching, like Javier’s the sun and you’re caught in his orbit. A strangled moan escapes him and you swallow the sound, brain drunk on the rapture of finally, finally getting what you want - what you’ve wished for. 

Your orgasm shreds you, your vision whiting out, a melody of noises and strangled sounds leaving your mouth, wanton and reckless and _relieved._

He works you through it; kisses your cheeks, your eyelids, your forehead - pushes the hair out of your face and when he cums with a groan you hold on to him too, waiting for the pleasure to recede from your body like a glimmering tide left the shore. 

And when it finally does you smile, exhausted, watching him with tired eyes as he pulls back, then rolls over and brings you with him. 

“Happy birthday, sweetheart.” 

“Thank you, Javi.”


	11. Tiles

“You’ve got me so fucked up,” Javier grunts in your ear, pressing your back against the unforgiving porcelain lip of the sink. It digs into your hips uncomfortably, but you find that you don’t care; far too lost in the deliriously sweet drag of Javier’s lips as they move up your neck. His hands are scorching as they slide along the curves of your body; groping, kneading, feeling. He feeds of your little gasps, off the choked moans that slip out of your mouth just as earnestly as his name that follows. ****

“I like this dress,” he comments, wedging a thigh between your legs. It’s a little black cocktail dress that falls just above your knees with a slit that travels up your thigh. You bought it especially for dinner; meeting the infamous ‘Murphy’ and his wife after hearing so much about them seemed like a big enough occasion to play dress up. So far you think they like you, but you aren’t sure how they’ll feel after being left waiting at a table reserved for four while Javier fucks you in a restaurant bathroom. “You look sexy…should wear them more often.”

You smile at his compliment, then tilt back your head as he assaults your jaw with his teeth, nipping at the sensitive flesh before soothing away the sting with his tongue. “In your dreams, lover-boy.” 

Javier chuckles, breath hot against your throat, then as an act of revenge he flexes his thigh at the same time he guides you to roll your hips against it. “No seas un mocosa,” he retorts, lightly slapping your outer thigh. 

Before you can say anything, he’s kissing you; heavy and delicious, tasting a little like the wine he had been drinking (Connie’s idea that you split a bottle, not his). Your mind flutters back to her and her husband briefly; how they must be sitting there, checking their watches, looking at each other, expressing what needs to be said without saying anything at all. It’s almost sort of funny. Almost because you wanted to make a good first impression. It was probably stupid of you to initiate this. You care a lot about Javier, and subsequently you care a lot about the people in his life. It’ll suck if they don’t like you, but it’ll also suck if Javier doesn’t pick up the pace. 

Eager to speed things up, you reach between your bodies and begin to undo his belt. The metal of his buckle as it clangs against the leather sounds impossible loud, echoing against the tile flooring. You lean away from him to see what you’re doing, frustrated at your shaking hands, and realize you’re in the tackiest fucking bathroom you’ve ever seen. Each wall is a different shade of coral and the towels have been folded into disfigured seagulls. It’s like whoever was designing it said to the builders ‘choose all the worst things about the beach’ and they absolutely fucking nailed it. “Oh my god, we’re really about to fuck in here. Okay.” 

Javier rolls his eyes, turning you around by your waist, and presses you against the sink again. Expert fingers lift up your dress, exposing you to the cool air. “What did I say, cariña? No seas lista,” he groans, grinding into your backside. 

You gasp and look at him through the mirror, eyes hooded and vision clouded with lust. You’re sure you’ll feel dirty as hell after this, but you don’t care. You just want Javier inside you. “Fuck me and maybe I’ll shut up.” 

The agent stares back at you, rakes a white-hot gaze down the image of you projected at him through the mirror. It lingers at your plunging neckline, then returns to your face, hungrier than ever. Turns out palming him through his jeans during dinner had been a fantastic idea. One of your best yet because you know that he’s about to fuck your brains out. 

There is a stillness that lasts about five seconds, like the strings of a rope on the verge of fracturing; the braid coming undone one by one before finally: it snaps. 

He’s on you like he’s never felt anything better than your soft, pliable skin beneath his fingers. One large, heavy hand rests at your lower back, keeping you bent over while the other crawls up your spine and into your hair. He takes a fistful of it and tugs backwards, enjoying the pathetic, needy moan that goes tumbling out of your mouth and bounces off the walls. “Don’t leave me waiting, Javi. Please.” 

Your entreatment goes unanswered. He’s merciless tonight, taking his time, letting you simmer and sizzle under the heated weight of his actions. The palm he doesn’t have tangled in your hair moves lower on your ass, four fingers spread across it while the other, his thumb, presses into your entrance lightly through the fabric of your underwear. 

You preen and push your hips backwards, but he keeps you in place, pleased with the way you’re already soaked through your panties. Your little trick at the table must have gotten you just as excited as it got him; your need for him ever apparent. “Look at you,” he coos, tugging your panties to the side torturously slow in his movements. “You need it, don’t you?” 

“Javier, I swear to god I will throw this fucking soap at you if you don’t do something.” 

Tragically, your voice doesn’t hold as much venom as you’d like. Your words instead come out as a whine, high pitched and begging. You’ve got no leverage here, caged by his warm, solid body. It doesn’t matter though, because his cock is pressing against you and whatever else he’s got to say dissolves into a mess of garbled static. 

Javier doesn’t move until he’s fully sheathed inside you, digits flexing against the base of your skull, his free hand molded against the curve of your hip as if it and his palm were sculpted together, forever bound to one another. You tense and flutter around him, cunt aching for more. Nails grasping against the slick surface of the counter, you’re left panting; already high strung from your little game earlier. 

Just when you’re about to complain, he moves; rocks into you-again and again and again, ruthless and unforgiving. It sucks the air out of your lungs, leaves you choking on your words, incoherent and so fucking pretty. 

A sharp slap pierces through the sound of your mixed breathing and moans. Javier rubs away the sting, enjoying the way your ass turns bright red under his ministrations. He does it again, watching you through the mirror as your jaw drops open. He does it again, grunting as you contract around him with each one, until your eyes begin to water. Tears blur the reflection of his handsome face. You can feel some of them fall from the corners of your eyes, and know that with each blink your mascara is smudging, sure to leave train tracks down your cheeks and temple. 

“Jesus Christ, eres tan bueno para mi.” 

He’s close, every thrust drawing out keening and breathless sighs of pleasure from deep within your chest. He thrusts into you with a need found ruthlessness, driving in and out of your pussy, almost unbearable in its intensity. At this point you know you’ll look like a hot mess the second this is over; thoroughly fucked out and tired with bruises littering the expanse of your body exposed by your dress. Arousal settles itself in your stomach, blinding and agonizing. You need just a little more; need it so bad that you feel like you’re vibrating, a desperate ache growing in your chest and throat. 

Javier touches you then, presses against your clit and: “Fuck, Javier. Just like that. Please, I’m gonna-” 

He pulls out in time to cum all over the back of your legs, some of it catching against your dress and the sink. You don’t even care at this point, strung out on pleasure, heated skin rejoicing at the feel of the cool porcelain. 

He kisses your shoulder while tugging your panties down the rest of your legs, tapping your calf to get you to lift up your feet. Javier stuffs them into his pocket then tugs your dress back down before reaching over you for one of the horribly folded washcloths. Javier runs the rag under the sink with hot water, squeezes it out, then cleans you up as he speaks.

“Shit. You bring any makeup?” Whoops. He probably should have asked that earlier, but it’s too late for that now. You just shake your head, still trying to catch your breath. Your concealer won’t hold up to the damage he’s done anyway. “Gonna need those back,” you murmur, unable to help the surge of overstimulating arousal that goes to your clit at the sight of them sticking out of his jeans. 

“Later,” he dismisses, tucking himself back into his pants.

You watch him toss the cloth into the trash and decided that you should probably help him in making yourself more presentable. Pushing your hair back down, you hope that your friends won’t notice that you had your hair up when you sat down. Dark streaks paint your face, breaking through your foundation. You scrub at them until they’re gone, then fix your lipstick before deciding that: hey, this is the best it’s going to get. 

When you’re both as decent as you’re going to get, he turns you around and kisses you; sweet and slow. The kind of kisses you aren’t really used to yet. 

“You think they left?” You ask once he leans away, blinking up at him, dizzy off his affection. 

“I don’t know. Do you want me to check?” 

You think about it. You just ditched them to fuck your boyfriend in a bathroom. And they totally know that. If they are gone, they footed the bill, too. You need to give it a few days before facing them again. 

“No, I don’t think we’re that kind of friends yet.”

“Alright. No puedo esperar para quitarte este vestido para siempre.”


	12. Tiles pt.

Connie taps her fingernails against the table. 

It’s rhythm is sportatic, impatient, dull against the too-thick, wined stained tablecloth that looks like it’s been washed a few times, frayed and a little translucent the way fabric gets when it gets worn. The spot annoys her, grosses her out a little bit too, but it neither surpasses nor equals her surmounting frustration with Javier Peña.

“What’s taking them so long?” 

Steve looks at her from where he’s placed his head in his hands, golden hair sticking out slightly at his temples where his fingers have been carding through it. This restaurant it too fucking hot. Too sticky and crowded. Sweat gathers at his temples and stains the part of his shirt that is glued to his back by the chair, his navy blazer barely concealing the darkening spot. He can hear an air conditioner somewhere off in the distance sputtering; fighting for its life with each exhale of luke-warm air it gasps into the dining area, the current weak and barely reaching the table. The fans are doing little to help aside from blowing around, in some sort of invisible cyclone, the smell of people confined into a tight space and the food cooking in the kitchen. 

This whole place is kind of a disaster but it was the only one that would take all of you on such short notice. What did Javier give him? Three hours? Four, maybe? An impulsive invitation he had wanted to reject - had trouble really seeing the point of too because he knows Javier’s patterns, how he flickers between women like cards in a rolodex - but when he brought it up with Connie she had been so excited, has been dying to meet you since Javier dared bring you up, so he had to give in. Javier was finally settling down. Doesn’t he want to meet this girl, she asked, wondering how her husband coasted through his life like this, somewhere on the cusp of not giving a fuck and investing himself too much. 

Sure, he does. He’ll just have to be cautious not to get your name mixed up with somebody else’s, but yeah. It’s fine, really. He’ll play along. Just that he didn’t believe this horse-shit for a second. 

What’s nastier though, what really puts the icing on the cake, is the knowledge that his best friend is fucking his - what - girlfriend - ? - in the bathroom only a few feet away from the table. Cursed with this knowledge because he knows Javier, knew the second his partner stood up and muttered some bullshit excuse about getting a drink at the bar that he was actually following you. You, who said you needed to use the restroom - excusing yourself with a polite smile as you took your napkin out of your lap - you who also had a hand beneath the table the entire first half of dinner, thinking no one else noticed aside from the man who’s inner thigh and knee you were caressing. 

He’s played that game too many times not to notice when it’s being danced right in front of him, and had pretended not to care when you accidentally tapped his foot. 

Now, however, he has to look into his wife’s face and make a decision. To lie and save her the grief of knowing, a gamble because she’s a smart woman, hoping she doesn’t connect the dots and find out on her own. Or to tell the truth now and spare you the potential of Connie showing her disgust to your face when you get back. 

Sort of a lose-lose situation. 

“Who knows.” Steve tosses a piece of straw paper he had been rolling around between his fingers onto a small ceramic plate left by the waiter for the salad bar none of you have gone up to yet, watches as it rolls onto its side. Connie spent the first half of the dinner asking questions about you; the basic, polite kind that filled what would have been otherwise unbearably awkward silence. What brought you to Colombia. How did you meet Javier. What did you do for a living. And before he knew it, you’d been sitting there for almost forty minutes without so much as glancing at your menus.

A good thing, objectively, if you all hadn’t been so goddamn tense.

He’ll decide on aloofness for now, though, afraid to break the fragile ease in which the night was following, not yet ready to make her upset. “Maybe there’s a line, I don’t know.” 

He takes a large sip of his wine; bitter and drying the awful way unripe grapes are with their peels, hoping it’ll somehow fast-forward the night, shut off his brain then turn it back on when you’re all saying your goodbyes. It isn’t so much that he dislikes you - or that collectively, dinner has been going poorly - but he’d rather not be stuck at a table waiting for his best friend to stop fucking someone. There are about a thousand other things he can think of that absolutely usurp that, including being shot at.

Setting his glass down, he grimaces, memories of his Tennessee upbringing fighting their way past the tropical weather and office filled state of his mind. “Jesus, it’s like drinking fucking communion wine.” 

You stand in front of the bathroom mirror, studying yourself. Mascara runs in burnt-out tire-tracks down your cheeks, flaking and clumping in some places. You aren’t so much worried about it as you are the red, petechial sucker-bites that litter your neck; developing into hues of dark purple and maroon. You can’t be mad though because it’s kind of your fault: you let him do it and it had been your mistake not bringing any make-up. The best you can do is the powder they keep on the sink (out-dated, you remember thinking when you spotted it while bent over, and fucking tacky as hell placed in some chipped ceramic, peach colored sea-shell). 

Javier grabs the hand-towel, tests the water’s temperature with his fingers first, then lets the rag soak underneath the faucet for a few seconds. You follow his movements as you adjust your bra, familiarizing yourself with the awkward sensation of being so exposed, anxious to leave the bathroom, but not quite ready to get back to the table yet, especially now. Your underwear, a pair of silky hip-huggers, peaks out of his dark jeans like a bright cherry on a bare tree branch - noticeable as hell - and the idea of it thrills and mortifies you simultaneously. There’s a sort of carnal pleasure knowing he’s got them tucked away, the possessive part of you keening at the idea that some sort of token has been exchanged that shows that he’s yours and you’re his, yet its running a race with your fear that they could fall out, or be noticed by someone, and that dampens the pleasure, something that would be so embarrassing you’d never be able to show your face in public again. 

He glances up the same time you shift your gaze to look at his face; his cheeks a little red and his hair a little wild, but otherwise looking just as he had when he sat down at the table. You almost want to yell at him for it, but then his eyes drop to your neck and he’s pursing his lips, wringing the towel. 

“Shit. You bring any make-up?” 

Instinctively, you look back at yourself and study the marks again, fingering the hickeys as if by touching them they’d disappear. If you keep your hair down, you should be okay. “No,” you answer, spreading your legs again as he begins to clean up his mess, out of breath from his sudden proximity again. “Gonna need those back, though.” 

Javier doesn’t answer you immediately, tucking himself back into his pants. The noise of his zipper sounds loud in the otherwise quiet bathroom, but you don’t say anything; caught up in remembering what the two of you just finished doing, looking at each other and breathing.

“Later,” he finally says, throwing the soiled rag into the waste-paper bin; the cloth hitting the bottom of the metal trash can with a wet thud and rustle of plastic. 

Okay, later then. 

You exit the bathroom first, scanning the area for anyone that might be looking before allowing Javier to follow. The agent doesn’t even try to be subtle, however, creeping up behind you almost immediately, placing his palm low on your hip and pressing a fleeting kiss to the back of your neck as he passes. You reach behind yourself and swat at him, then stare at the back of his head with eyes wide in disbelief and anger as he passes you, unaware of the streak of red tipping precariously like a tiny flag out of his pocket. 

“Oh, finally.” Connie sighs, her tapping finally ceasing. Steve picks his head up again and leans back in his chair, eyes hard set and annoyed. He’s gone through another glass and a half within the thirty minutes you and Javier had been gone, downing the alcohol like it was the only thing keeping him from getting up and dragging Javier’s sorry ass back to the table.

It takes him less than a millisecond to notice the state you’re both in.

“Aw, Christ,” he mutters under his breath, scratching the back of his head. 

You stand on shaky legs next to Javier as he pulls out your chair for you, making sure you’re sat down and comfortable before doing the same. For a few tense, almost unbearable moments silence falls on the four of you like a blanket of snow on a street. It holds the same kind of resistance to break it too, and the same fragility, however instead of being tranquil it’s taut; feels so tightly stretched that if you even so much as move in the wrong way, it’ll solidify and become something hard and abrasive, making The Murphy’s hatred of you concrete. But you can’t just sit here and say nothing for the rest of the evening, you all know that. Silence will only make things worse, so you’re the first to speak, both out of obligation and the unwillingness to bear such awful tension. 

You really want them to like you. It took a lot for you to become a more permanent part of Javier’s life; not just someone who shares his bed, some peripheral moon or orbiting space rock. It’s taken a lot of arguing and fighting, tears and hoarse voices and shouting so loud that your neighbors look at you differently when they see you in the hallway. A lot of convincing. Hell, Javier was still trying to determine if this was a good idea on the way over, fingers twitching against the steering wheel, casting side-ways glances at you thinking you hadn’t noticed the way the wheels in his head have been turning. Blow this now and you might as well call it quits, throw everything into a sudden clutchless drive into reverse. 

“Sorry, there was a line.” You say and Steve almost laughs. “Javier came and found me.” You glance at him and smile. “Did you order yet?” 

You look between their faces, hoping your own expression doesn’t betray your true emotions, smiling despite the way they both look back at you - gazes empty, tired, irritated. 

“Where’s that drink, Javi?” Steve prompts, foregoing your question to ask one of his own. 

Javier looks into Steve’s face, resists the urge to ask him what the fuck he’s getting at, and instead opts for a more polite, stilted answer. “Left it at the bar, I guess. Tasted like shit anyway.” 

Connie watches, her gaze shifting, and for a moment she’s tempted to just let it happen - watch the thinly veiled argument that’s about to pursue, let it run its course and bring on a premature departure from this nightmare of a dinner - but then she notices the way you’re trying to flatten your dress of its wrinkles, looking embarrassed and sad and like the entire world is collapsing and she’s hit with a wave of guilt and sympathy because she knows exactly how it feels. 

The pain, the hesitation and fear of being with men like Steve and Javier. The bumbling discomfort of trying to make friends in a new country. She knows and she understands. 

“The wine isn’t very good either.” She interjects, swishing what remains of the dark liquid in her glass. She ignores Steve’s glance, the way Javier is twisting his fork between his thumb and pointer finger like he’s trying to keep himself from stabbing her husband with it, how this dinner will probably get a whole lot worse before it gets better. “Hopefully the food is better. We let the waiter decide.” 

Whether that will end up being a mistake is still up in the air, but she had gotten so fed up with waiting and the man coming and going that she just told him to bring out whatever their special was for the night, struggling to find something to say that’s more appropriate than the thoughts in her head, tight lipped and doing her best to smile - keeping her fingers crossed that it won’t end up being something you’d all absolutely hate. If it came to that, at least there was the salad bar. 

Javier nods and chuckles, hoarse and low and although it makes you shift in your seat, you know he’s doing his best to make the conversation regain some traction, expertly suffocating the weighty feeling of their knowledge, trying to carry on like nothing happened, so it’s best not to let yourself get carried away again. 

And you’re grateful for it, really, because it’s better than the alternative; but you’re also very, very aware of your bare ass against your dress, the way Javier is smirking just enough to make you want to kick him from under the table, and the pressure of the Murphy’s judgement. There’s no way that they don’t know - or at least not have some inkling. You disappeared for half an hour and showed up back to the table simultaneously after departing only between seconds of each other. Those facts aren’t really conducive with the lies you had thrown at them; stabs in the fucking dark, too caught up the rush of getting to fuck him somewhere public and the sort of dirty, naughty feeling of leaving his friends behind to get off. 

Anyway. You regret that now. 

“Oh,” you blink, your responding grin hesitant and shy. “Okay.” 

The table lulls, the silence much easier to bear, and you all just look at each other before Connie takes a deep breath and smiles in your direction. 

“So, Javier told us that you just had a birthday?” 

You glance in his direction, trying to get used to being surprised like this - surprised that he talks about you, makes you known, solidifies you in his life. You look back at Connie and nod, shooting her one of your first genuine smiles of the night. 

“Yeah! Yeah, it’s not really a big deal, though. Javi came over with cupcakes and we had some wine. It was a good night.” 

“That does sound nice. Javi should have told us about you sooner, we could have gone out to celebrate.” 

Steve looks at his wife and Javier tenses in your periphery, shifting in his seat. 

“That’s alright. I was working late, anyway.” You say, quick to pierce the tension before it can become awkward again. 

“It must be awful having to walk around all day.” 

“It’s alright. I like being on my feet and talking to people.”

Although some days you really just dislike your job as a tour guide, you enjoy Colombia. You enjoy the country’s beauty, its history, the people living there. Even if it’s sometimes dangerous, so is everywhere else. It’s made you a better person, and made you realize things about yourself. 

It also brought you to Javi. 

“That’s how you met Javi, right?” 

“Kind of. We actually met in a bar. I had gone there because it was one of the only places I hadn’t really checked out after moving here. I was lucky he happened to be there, too.” You flush as you answer, feeling a little embarrassed you couldn’t give her a more romantic answer. Also very, very aware of how you two seem to have a propensity for fucking in bathrooms. 

“No kidding! That’s so funny. Steve and I met the same way.” 

“Yeah?” You hadn’t expected getting this side of Connie after returning to the table, surprised by her change in attitude. Something must have happened while you were gone. Or maybe she just had a change of heart. Either way, you’re glad for it. 

“Yeah, some buddies of mine thought it would be hilarious to tell me she was starin’ at my ass. Couldn’t let them pull one over on me, so I asked for her number. Still surprised it wasn’t fake.” Steve answers, fiddling with his napkin, glancing at his wife with a secretive, sort of pleased expression. 

Connie returns it. They’re so in love that, for just a second, it makes your chest hurt. 

“I had to play it cool. Couldn’t let you know it was the truth.” 

“Really?” Steve leans back in his seat, looking into her face, expression caught somewhere between smiling and disbelief. 

“Yep.” Connie grins, taking a sip of her wine.

You look at Javier’s profile, wonder if you two are at that point - the point where, when people look at you, they get a little jealous of the love you have - get a little envious and wish secretively that one day they’d be able to be those people, too. 

Instead of looking at him the way you do now, like it’s his pulpit and you’re his pathetic, lonely congregation. 

“Anyway,” she sets her glass down and places her other hand atop yours. “I’m glad Javi’s finally met someone. You make him really happy. And to be honest, I need some friends.” 

You look over at Javier for confirmation (ignoring the way you nearly feel like you must to believe she’s telling the truth), and he smiles, nudging his knee against your own under the table. 

The food comes shortly after that. Connie had made the right decision by ordering for the table, the conversation flowing much easier than it had before between bites of food and sips of wine. They’re warming up to you, which you’re glad for because you were sure that by the end of the night, you’d be leaving alone. Eventually, though, with the back of your ears and your cheeks hurting from smiling so much, dinner ends and you all stand up, Javier and Steve placing a few bills onto the table. 

“We should do this again sometime.” Connie says as she pushes in her chair. “It’s not often we get a chance to leave the house.” 

You make to agree, the words just resting on the roof of your mouth, when you spot them. 

Your underwear. 

Hanging precariously from the edge of Javier’s front pocket. 

And for seconds that feel entirely too long, you watch in horror as they’re jostled by Javier’s hand as he goes to put his wallet back, the red fabric falling limply in an embarrassing lump onto the floor. 

“Uh…I think you dropped something, Javier.” 

The three of you that’s noticed stand there, Steve closes his eyes and exhales, his grip on his chair tightening slightly. Connie’s mouth opens almost like she wants to say something else, but she must decide against it, existing somewhere between startled and laughing out of shock, pointedly looking away from your direction. Javier - fucking Javier - is still talking, saying something to Steve, hasn’t noticed what’s just happened while he’s tucking the waiter’s tip underneath one of the plates, then finally Steve loudly clears his throat, catches his partner’s attention.

Javier looks up at Steve, follows his gaze. 

“Oh shit. Thanks.” 

The agent bends down, plucks them easily off the ground and stuffs them back into his pocket, bold enough to punctuate his action with a fucking transition word, continuing his sentence like nothing happened. 

You interrupt him, shame rooting itself so deeply in the middle of your breastbone it feels like it’s weighing down the back of your throat. “I’m so sorry. I-uh-we just-” 

“I have nothing to say for myself.” 

Javier stops for a second time, and the significance of what’s just happened must finally sink in because he looks at you with an expression so grim and guilty you almost forgive him for ruining this right then and there. 

But you don’t. You stay quiet, silently hoping that one of them, Javier included, will take pity on you and end this muted torture before you begin to cry. 

“I think we should get going.” Connie says, her fingers flexing around the strap of her purse. Steve nods in agreement, bleeding tired and weariness so heavy you wish the floor would swallow you whole before he gets the chance to level you with it. 

“Yeah, it’s gettin’ late.” 

“Y-yeah, okay.” You agree, unable to look them in their faces, gripping your bag so tightly that your knuckles start to ache, your other hand nervous and busy with smoothing down your dress. 

Your walk to the door must be what it feels like to be stepping towards an electric chair, your head bowed and your face flushed. 

It’s only made worse as you get closer to the entryway, none of you quite sure how to say goodbye. 

Except for Connie, the hero of tonight it seems, who pulls you into a semi-stilted, somewhat surprising and startling genuine side hug. “Don’t worry about it. We had fun tonight.” She whispers before pulling back. “It was nice meeting you.” 

“What the hell was that?” Steve’s hushed voice cuts through the ambiance of the restaurant at the same time, taking the chance he’s given by Connie’s distraction to tear into Javier. 

“I’m going to marry her.” Javier says, sidestepping Steve’s question. 

Steve gapes. 

“You’re what?” 

“I have the ring in my pocket right now.” He continues, low and steadfast. 

“Were you gonna propose tonight?” Steve’s tone rises an octave, his mind suffering from whiplash, trying to process his friend’s dismissal of the current situation and the seriousness of this new development. 

“Of course not. But soon.” He answers, then adds with an almost deprecating, dismissive chuckle. “If she’ll have me.” 

Steve blinks, rubs his brow bone and chuckles with him. Tonight might have been a disaster, but he can see the shift there’s been in Javier since meeting you. You’re good for him. 

“Hey, if she’s willin’ to put up with your bullshit I say go for it, man.” Steve looks at Connie and they make eye-contact over your shoulder. “Women like that only come around once.” 

“Yeah,” Javier agrees with a sigh. “Yeah, man. I’ll tell you when it happens, might need your help not fuckin’ this up.” 

They both laugh, the need to brace themselves easing from their shoulders. 

“You ready to go?” Steve calls out to Connie. 

Connie pulls away from you, smiles. You go to apologize directly to Steve, the first few words of your sentence sidetracked by the shaking of his head. 

“It was nice finally meeting you.” 

You smile just a little. “It was nice finally meeting you, too. You as well, Connie.” 

“Goodnight, guys.” She says, ducking under Steve’s arm as he holds open the door. 

“Goodnight.” 

Cold air blows in from the street, the pavement and restaurants outside cast in a light blue shadow, punctuated by the streetlamps and neon signs of other buildings, easily enveloping their bodies as they step across the restaurant’s threshold. 

Javier stands there with you, watching as the door slowly begins to close. 

You shift your weight, wondering what you should say to him, if it’s worth being upset about the panties. 

Then - 

“Let’s get married.”


	13. The Air Conditioner

Kingsville, Texas. July 1996. 

Barefoot and holding two drinks in your hands, you make your way across the house towards the front door, sidestepping and picking up your legs to avoid colliding with cardboard boxes labelled in Javier’s quick, capitalized handwriting _‘kitchen,’ ‘living room,’ ‘bedroom,’_ and _‘attic.’_

Most of them have been opened by you and remain near the entryway where he and his father had set them down to be pushed further into the house later, still filled with old newspaper and bubble wrap, protecting the ceramic plates, glass cups, lamps and other fragile things you’ve collected over the years. You go between unpacking them with no apparent system and getting frustrated that nothing seems to be falling into place, carrying different items into their respective rooms trying to lessen the clutter taking up a majority of the parlor while Javier carries everything inside from the rented U-haul parked on the opposite side of the street. A never ending battle it seems, with furniture starting to join the masses. You never realized you had this much stuff. 

But it’s arguably better than how you’ve been living for the last two and a half weeks, waiting for your things to successfully get through customs, sleeping on an inflatable air mattress that has you waking up feeling centuries old and eating meals off paper plates like college students. 

“What did you think of the officiant?” You call to Javier, approaching the front porch - the open screen door letting in a breeze that flutters the sheer curtains you had hung up first. He stands on the smooth pavement just in front of the single step that leads up towards the house and you stop just in front of him, offering him the sweet tea in your hand then passing the other to Chucho on his way inside. 

Javier murmurs a quick thank you and takes a long sip, sweaty and exhausted, then places his free hand on your hip and pulls you closer. 

You smile and let him, starting to push his hair away from his face. When he had told you about how brutal Texas summers are, you had thought he was being dramatic. Here you both are, though. Gross and out of breath. Even your dress and his t-shirt are doing very little to help keep you cool. Taking a small break will be nice. “He looked like if the wind blew too hard, he’d fall over. Are we sure he’s who we want?” 

“I don’t know, honey.” He shrugs, a smile in his voice, rattling the ice in his cup before bringing it back to his lips. “The stick up his ass might keep him upright.” 

“Javi!” 

“Am I wrong?” 

“No.” You begrudgingly agree.

The man is at least in his late sixties with grey and thinning hair, one of those righteous conservative types that seeks to place judgement in everything. You both had been polite to him, as polite as you could be after having sat through an hour and forty five minute Sunday morning mass, mumbling along to hymns and prayers, pretending to know the words. Javier had smiled and shook his hand, introduced you and said it was good to see him. His mother’s idea, desperately wanting the marriage to happen in the church his family had attended all his life, said something about how it was the same cathedral she had married his father in decades before. You weren’t entirely sold on the idea, but if it meant that you’d be married to Javier and still have his parent’s blessing, you had decided to make this concession. 

You just hadn’t realized just how much of a dickhead the priest would be. 

“I know it’s what your family wants, but is it too late to just…elope?” You’re careful to keep your voice down, smoothing your hand over the wrinkles in Javier’s shirt. Chucho had gone into the house and although he isn’t a nosy man, you don’t want him overhearing your plans to make rash decisions with his son. “I mean, he seems pretty bitter about what happened.” 

Any mention of Lorraine months ago would have made him tense, but all Javier does now is exhale - somewhere between amused and annoyed. He had tried explaining to his mom that he isn’t the twenty something year old kid about to marry his high school sweetheart anymore and that the wedding she is expecting isn’t necessary - and in fact something that shouldn’t happen because although there’s been a lot of forgiveness, no one ever forgets. It would be unnecessarily strange and unkind to have a near replica of the celebration she had planned for him the first time around. Not to mention, incredibly unfair to you. You deserve to make this your own. 

“I know. There’s not much we can do about it. I could try speaking to him, but after Lorraine I’m pretty sure he hates my guts.” Javier explains as he sets his glass down on the banister.

Laughing at the idea of him having a priest of all people as his arch nemesis, you wrap your arms fully around him in a hug, then sigh. “Pretty sure he doesn’t like me either. We’re really making a great team here.” 

He hums in response, his following chuckle warm and seeping. “Could really make his life a living hell by telling him we have a kid outta wedlock. Borrow Olivia. Jesus, the way his head would fuckin’ spin.” 

You immediately pick up your head. “We are not doing that.” 

“It’d be funny.” 

“It would be funny, but I want this wedding to actually happen. Although telling people we got banned from church would be kind of cool. And it would get us out of having to wake up early on the weekends.”

“Something you and all the fifteen year old potheads around here would have in common.” Javier snickers. 

“I know you’re making fun of me, but at least then I’d still be hip.” 

He makes a face. Your regret is instantaneous. 

“We gonna mention the word you used just now?” 

“No. No we’re not.” 

“Hip…” He repeats, teasing, tickling your side. You swat at his hands, fighting the way you want to smile. “I don’t think we’ve been hip since 1985.” 

“Why am I marrying you again?” Javier looks down at your narrowed eyes, can see right through your attempt to remain serious after asking him something so silly and obvious. 

He narrows his back, brings his hands - callus smooth and hard working - to your cheeks and cups your face. “Not funny.” 

“Oh? So, giving Father a heart attack would be funny but I can’t ask you a legitimate question. I see how it is, Peña.” 

“How it is, is that there’s a courthouse down the street…” 

He lowers his voice. You blink up at him, following his train of thought, trying not to let your heart flutter too fast against your ribs. 

“So if you really wanna do this, lame ass or not, I’m ready to make you my wife.” 

“You want to get married today?” 

Javier grins, leans down and kisses you sweet and tender and soft and suddenly all the heartache has been worth it. 

“Let’s go get married.” 

-

“There’s another box? I thought we unpacked them all?” 

“I guess not.” Your husband - _husband_ \- answers, carrying the item inside. “Why is this so fucking heavy?” 

You close the door behind him and follow Javier as he makes his way to the dining room, setting the package down on your newly assembled table. You go to the kitchen and grab him a knife, watching then as he opens it. 

“Oh, it’s a gift.” 

Discreetly wrapped on purpose then. A surprise. You had thought those stopped coming, too. When his parents found out you had forgone their plans for your wedding, they had initially been disappointed, but had come around easy - ultimately only looking out for the happiness of you and their son, and held a small reception in the backyard of their house. 

Simple and perfect, lacking any of the awkward and stilted routine of the wedding that had been planned.

Javier picks up the folded note placed neatly atop what looks like a plastic pamphlet of instructions and small tools. He reads it out loud, shares a look of confusion with you. 

_“To the newlyweds. Congratulations, buddy. To the bride, try not to break this one.”_

_\- Steve and Connie Murphy_

“What is it?” 

You watch him look down into the box, then chuckle. 

“It’s an air conditioner.” 


End file.
